Smoke and Mirrors
by artigiano
Summary: A companion of sorts to my anthology series "Night Visions." This will be an anthology of mostly hurt/comfort and angst oneshots, centered mainly around Steve, Danny, and their relationship, based off of Imagine Dragon's second album.
1. Shots

**GUYS.** **It's been way, way, way, waaaayyy too long. I know I promised a way long time ago that I would publish a second anthology of oneshots to go with** ** _Imagine Dragons_** **second album at the end of** ** _Night Visions_** **, and I'm finally back to start honoring that promise.**

 ****A/N 1: This is probably going to be a slow go for a while, because right now I only have a few completed stories. Life has been crazy for the past year and I haven't had the time or the motivation to write for a while. Things aren't really less crazy in my life, but I'm hoping that by getting this posted that I (and all of your lovely reviews) will be able to push myself to start writing regularly again. Right now I have about the first three done, and then we'll go from there.**

 **A/N 2: Obviously, a lot has happened in the Five-0 World since I was last publishing. I'm beyond sad that we're losing Chin and Kono on the show, but 100000% support Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park's decision and fight for equality. Regardless of cast changes as we start the new season, though, these oneshots will pretty much all include the original team (and Lou, when he fits in-I swear, I have the hardest time writing him). Oh, and because I cannot remember for the life of me the new governor, Denning is still in charge in this universe.**

 *****A/N 3: This story comes from the prompt of a Guest reviewer on _Night Visions_ :** "Can you do a misunderstood situation leaves the team feeling Steve has betrayed or wronged them. Angstyness ensues." **I'm not sure I'm happy with how this one turned out, but if I keep tinkering with it and playing with it, I'd never post, so I'd love to have any and all feedback. Hopefully, I did the prompt justice. Also, this hasn't been beta'd, so all mistakes are my own.**

 **Standard disclaimers apply.**

* * *

" _ **I'm sorry for everything,**_

 _ **Oh, everything I've done.**_

 _ **From the second I was born it seems I had a loaded gun.**_

 _ **And then I shot, shot, shot a hole through everything I loved."**_

It had been a bad case from start to finish. A robbery involving fresh Navy recruits off the base had sent Steve into military-mode so fast it made Danny' head spin, but in a frustratingly protective sort of what. The constant fighting that had ensued between Steve and the rest of the team had put them all on edge, and on an opposite side of their leader, who firmly maintained the sailors' innocence.

When they had gotten called to the scene of a robbery in progress, everything felt tense, unsure, off from their normal routine and behavior for handling situations like this.

At least, that's what Danny was attributing their current predicament to. Their current predicament being Lou standing over the body of a suspected robber he'd just shot in what he said was self-defense, but with no gun in sight and a ransom note in the guy's pocket that told the sailor that if he didn't follow instructions and rob three specific banks, his son and daughter would be killed.

It was just about as bad as it could get, let alone the fact that Five-0 had barged in on the scene, interrupting SWAT's negotiations and escalating tensions. It was bad from start to finish, and Danny knew that a massive shit-storm was heading their way, regardless of whether it was right for Lou to pull the trigger or not. He knew it was coming because SWAT was bound to complain to the governor, he knew it was coming from the fact that the Navy was bound to get involved, but most of all he knew it because of the look on Steve's face.

It wasn't the fact that Steve had a particular look on his face; rather, it was that he had no expression at all. He was hiding behind a carefully constructed mask as he surveyed the chaos of the scene around him, a mask that Danny had seen only rarely, only when his partner was analyzing a situation and not liking the end result he was coming to.

Danny hesitated where he stood, not sure if he wanted to go talk to Steve or hang back and simply try to disappear, but finally he worked up his courage and made his way over to his best friend. "Steve, what are—"

Danny didn't even get to finish his sentence, wasn't sure even necessarily what he was going to ask, when Steve cut him off quickly and efficiently. "Have we questioned any of the others yet about the ransom note?"

"No, SWAT was still securing them at—"

Again, Steve cut him off; like his brain was three steps ahead and he couldn't even wait to have Danny finish his sentence. "You and Chin need to go talk to them right away, see what information you can get out of them about the kids, but make sure you both have an HPD officer with you at all times. Make sure Lou sits this one out, and make sure he gives his full statement to HPD as soon as possible, and I want Kono there with him when he does."

"Steve?" Danny didn't even ask more than that, knew that all of his questions were conveyed in that single word.

"With everything that happened last year with Abby's investigation, they're already watching us more closely than usual. Now with this, with Lou, they're going to be coming at us hard, and I want someone outside of our team to be able to corroborate anything that's said and done from here on out."

"You don't trust us?"

Steve shot Danny a dark look. "Of course I do, but no one else is going to. More problematically, the governor isn't too happy with us at the moment anyway, and so he's not going to."

"Wait, since when is Denning pissed at us?" He narrowed his eyes at his partner, anger that was already simmering at the surface from their current situation rising up quickly. "What haven't you been telling me?"

"Danny, I—"

This time it was Danny's turn to cut his partner off. "Don't try to bullshit me here, Steven. What is going on?"

The taller man sighed, the only hint that Danny could see of the SEAL's emotions at the moment. "I have a lot of conversations with the governor that you don't always hear about, Danny. Including multiple conversations about how unhappy he was that he had to find out after the fact that Robert Coughlin was spearheading an investigation into the team."

"That's on Coughlin for not going through the appropriate channels."

"Maybe it is, but good old Gov isn't happy that our team even could have been doing things that would have warranted an outside investigation in the first place."

"He's the one that gave us means and immunity!" Danny replied angrily.

"What was or wasn't given doesn't really matter to a politician when re-election times comes rolling around, Danny. Right now, he thinks we're toeing the line, and none of this is going to help the situation any. So just start working to find those kids as soon as possible, have Lou give his statement, and just make sure you have someone there to observe you and backup what you're doing at all times. I want to be able to prove everything we did was above board form this moment forward. Got it?"

For a moment, Danny felt a ridiculous urge to snap his heels together and salute, a urge he quickly and fervently squashed. "And where are you going to be going while all of this is happening?"

"To talk to the governor, of course."

Just as Steve was turning away from Danny to leave, his phone rang. Danny saw the governor's name on the screen before his partner picked it up, and the blonde subtly shifted closer so that he could hear.

"This is McGarrett."

" _I heard about the incident today. You and I need to have a serious conversation about your future and the future of this team. This is unacceptable."_

"Yes, sir."

" _You need to decide if you're going down with this sinking ship, or if you're going to wizen up and make use of your talents elsewhere. Believe me, I'd love to hold you accountable for this whole mess, but I've got a Navy guy here who seems to think you're more useful to us motivated, so you better seriously consider whether you want to choose between a dishonorable discharge or making this right on your own. I expect you here within the hour. Are we clear?"_

"Crystal, sir." Without another word, Steve hung up the phone, spared one backward glance at Danny, said, "I'll talk to you later," and then walked away, leaving Danny totally unsure of what he had just heard.

* * *

After that, they didn't hear from Steve.

The remaining team members did exactly what he'd asked, followed all of HPD's instructions, and started searching for the missing kids. But through all of it, it had been sheer silence from the leader of their task force.

Finally, hours later, they received word—but not from the source itself. Instead, Jerry came rushing into the top level of headquarters, worry all over his face. "What's going on, guys?"

Danny looked up at the other man, trying to figure out what the conspiracy theorist was asking. "With the case?"

"With Steve," Jerry replied, looking like he could start wringing his hands in anxiety any second.

"What are you talking about?" Chin asked sharply, his typing paused.

"Well, I was out, talking to one of my contacts to see if anyone had heard anything about the kids—and they hadn't—but I called Steve to update him anyway, but he didn't pick up. So I tried him a few more times and got nothing, and then I got worried because of everything that's going on and I maybe or maybe not pinged his cell phone. Just to see where he was and make sure that he was okay. And it turned out he was at the governor's so I went there, and—"

"Wait, wait," Danny interjected, "are you tracking us?"

Jerry glanced away, sheepish. "Only when I have to, but that's not the point here! Anyway, I pulled in just as he was walking out with the governor and some guy who liked like he was from the Navy. And he shook both their hands, but then left with the Navy guy."

"Okay, but that could be anything, Jerry." Chin replied, his voice much calmer. "He could be going to talk to our victim's wife, or to verify the guy's story, or—"

"But why wouldn't he check in or answer any of my calls?" Jerry was clearly still uncertain, and that uncertainty seemed to fill all the space in the room as his sentence hung in the sudden silence. "All I'm saying is that something feels hinky."

"You always think something is hinky, Jerry," Danny replied with a smirk, although the expression on his face was at war with the sudden unease he felt inside. It had been hours since he'd heard from Steve and normally, even when there was big stuff happening, Steve found a way to update at least Danny.

"And look how often I'm right," Jerry retorted indignantly. "What if something's wrong?"

"He told us he'd be keeping space, especially from Lou, so that HPD could do their work without interruption," Chin said, still the voice of reason. "It's probably just that and he's smoothing things over on the Navy's end."

"But wouldn't he have let us know if there was an update of any kind? What if he's in trouble with the Navy—like personally—over all of this?"

At Jerry's question, Danny's heart sank even further as a terrible thought came into his head, one he didn't want to listen to, one he couldn't believe himself having after knowing McGarrett for seven years and knowing how loyal he was. But Danny had heard the phone call, had heard the Governor's words. And once the thought was in his head, he couldn't stop it from coming out his mouth. "Or he hasn't called to check in because he made his own deal with the Governor and the Navy."

Chin looked at Danny, confusion and disbelief clear in his eyes. "You really think Steve hung us out to dry? You can't be serious."

Danny was silent for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose to try to stave off the headache he could feel forming. "I mean, he hasn't called to give us an update, although clearly something's happened. Which, fine, I could understand in all the craziness of the day. But both the Navy and the Governor are pissed off at us right now, and maybe the stakes are higher for him because he's technically still owned by them. And Steve loves the Navy more than anything else, so if it came down to defending this team and going down with us, or making his own deal to save his career and reputation with the Navy, which do you think he'd choose?" Danny paused for a moment, and then proceeded to fill them in about the phone call he'd overheard before Steve had left. "If they were threatening him with a dishonorable discharge, don't you think he'd do anything to stop that?"

Chin didn't waiver for a second, even with the information about the phone call, and when he spoke, his voice was full of disappointment. "I think, faced with that choice, he would choose us. He would choose us, Danny, and I can't believe that you of all people would doubt him like this. He's always been there, for each of us, whenever we needed him."

"I know that!" Danny replied, his anguish coming through. "He'd done things for me that no one else would have, and I'm not saying that this is what's happened, I'm just saying it could explain things. The Navy, the guys he served with, they were his family long before we were, and I think sometimes he's just looking for an excuse to go back to them. Back to the people that have known him and been with him through the worst of it. What if this is his excuse? What if he made his own deal, took his own punishment, and is dealing with his issues by himself? He's done it before."

"But never at our expense, Danny. When everyone thought he'd killed Laura Hill and then Governor Jameson and he was off on his own, everything he did affected him. He didn't do anything to hurt us, made sure to keep us out of it. Just because you're determined to always see the worst in him doesn't mean I am."

"I'm not—that's not…" Danny trailed off, knowing that no matter what he said, Chin would still see his thoughts as a betrayal of Steve. "I'm just saying it's possible."

Chin shook his head." I can't believe that it is. I can't believe that you'd think that. You're his best friend—how can you doubt his loyalty?"

"I'm not doubting his loyalty, and I'm not saying that he'd just forget us in an instant. But you're right. I am his best friend and I know him better than anyone. And I know that whether he says it or not, the Navy has always been his backup plan. That if things stopped working here, if Five-0 fell apart for some reason, he'd have something to go back to. But if that was threatened, if someone told him the safety-net of his second home would be taken away, don't you think that there'd be a chance that he'd insure his future? After all, if some governor down the line decided to disband the team, what would he do? You and I—hell, even Kono—would wind up at HPD, and Lou would either make it back to SWAT or take up golfing. But Steve? He wouldn't go join HPD be a park of the rank and file, have to answer to someone about his investigative practices. He may be used to taking orders from the Navy, but no way is he going to go through the academy, fight the politics and the mundaneness of it all.

"Can you see McGarrett as a patrol cop? Having to be trained by a more experienced officer? He's never been through any official training, and he'd have to get some no matter where he ended up at the end of the day. He's practically made us into a paramilitary police force—you think he could give that up for rules and regulations and police politics? No way. He'd go back to the Navy, and I'm not sure I'd blame him because he'd be miserable otherwise. He's got too much of a hero complex and too much wanderlust to stay here without a clear purpose. So yeah. I think that if he saw that other option being threatened, he'd do what he felt was necessary. Even if it meant disengaging from us."

"You seem pretty calm for someone who thinks their best friend is going to abandon them," Chin pushed back, not even acknowledging anything Danny had said.

"God, Chin, of course I'm calm because this is all theoretical and we have no idea what's happening! I said it was possible, not that I knew for a fact he'd be shipping out soon. He probably just hasn't had time to call and Jerry is overreacting! I don't think he's leaving us to deal with the fallout of everything on our own and riding off into the sunset, okay? I'm just playing devil's advocate."

Chin raised his hands in surrender, realizing for the first time that in some point during their argument, Jerry had quietly left the room. "Okay. Just so long as we're on the same page here. Because you'd feel like a real ass if you said all that, stood by it, and then were wrong."

Danny immaturely felt like rolling his eyes in response, but managed to refrain. "I'm not a shitty best friend for recognizing the possibility of that scenario."

"No," Chin agreed, some of his anger appearing to dissipate. ""But he's had too many people not believe in him or screw him over in his life, and I'd hate for any of us to be the next one."

Danny nodded, but didn't say anything, couldn't find the words as guilt and self-recrimination started to creep in now that his back wasn't against the wall. Steve had had plenty of opportunities to leave over the years but had never taken them, and even though Chin had let him off the hook, he was starting to feel as shitty as the Hawaiian man had said he should. "Please don't say anything to—"

"It's forgotten, Danny," Chin said with a tired smile. "We should see if Kono has had any headway on finding the kids."

* * *

Their attempts to reach Kono were unsuccessful, but she walked in the door a few minutes later, a smile on her face. "We got them!"

"Oh, thank god," Danny said, sagging against the table in relief. "How?"

"Well, using the cellphone data Chin sent us, we managed to work with HPD to isolate the number being used to pass along the instructions, and then triangulated it, and…" She trailed off, with a shrug. "I can give you a full rundown later, but main point is that HPD picked them up half an hour ago. Lou gave his statement to HPD and they're processing everything, but it looks like he'll be cleared since the guy had had a gun and Lou thought he still did when he fired. Not great and not a clean shot, but I don't think they'll charge him."

"Good," Danny said with ta nod. "That's good."

"Yeah, definitely. Any word from Steve?"

Danny forced himself not to guiltily meet Chin's eyes. "Not yet."

"From the governor?"

"He wants to meet with us ASAP," a new voice said, and the three of them looked up as Lou walked into the office. "I figured we would go over together."

"Did he say for what? Why'd he call you? Did he say anything about Steve?" Danny's questions were rapid fire, his need to know something outweighing anything else.

But Lou just swallowed and looked to the ground, clearly still affected by today's events, and then answered each question slowly. "Disciplinary action. I was already on the phone with him when he let me know about meeting with all of us. I figured I should personally offer my resignation. And no, nothing about Steve."

"Oh, Lou," Kono said, stepping up to give the bigger man a hug. "You're not going to resign. We'll get through this together, as a team."

This time, Danny did meet Chin's gaze, and he couldn't stop the wave of shame that crashed over him. In an effort to ward off anymore unwanted feelings, he pulled his keys out of his pocket and waived them in the air. "Well, let's get this party on the road. I'm sure Steve will meet us there."

* * *

Except he didn't.

As the remaining members of Five-0 piled out of their cars and were escorted into the governor's mansion, and then into his office, Steve wasn't anywhere. Danny could feel his nerves start up, the uncertainty of their position coupled with the obvious lack of his best friend making everything worse.

And so, when the governor walked in, Danny couldn't stop the question from immediately popping out of his mouth. "Where's Steve?"

"Commander McGarrett will not be joining us this evening," the man replied as he took a seat behind his desk.

"Excuse me? Steve's our boss and if you're going to be discussing any punishments for the team, I'm pretty sure he should be here," Danny replied angrily.

"Actually no, Detective Williams, because Commander McGarrett is no longer your boss."

"Excuse me, what?" Kono's sharp voice cuts through the immediate silence that had ensued after the governor's comment. "What the hell do you mean?"

"Why don't you all take a seat and then we can proceed," Denning said politely, indicating the chairs behind them, but when none of them made to move, he sighed and kept going. "I don't want to imply that the Commander hung you all out to dry, but he did feel that it was better for his own prospects to get ahead of this and make his own deal with the Navy, leaving me to appoint someone else as the head of this task force."

"This is a joke, right?" Chin's tone was calm, but Danny could read the anger. "You honestly believe us to expect that the man that brought us all together is just abandoning us? And besides, _you're_ his boss—what's the Navy doing being involved in anything so much as to be necessary for disciplinary action? Why the hell would you even let them factor in?"

"Believe what you will, Lieutenant Kelly, but I can only give you the facts as I know them. To answer your questions, this was supposed to be a joint investigation with Five-0 and NCIS, and while events progressed before NCIS could get officially up to speed and involved in the case, the Navy still had interest in the outcome. Furthermore, Commander McGarrett is still in the Navy—yes," he said, holding off his hands to stop the protests he obviously knew were coming, "yes, in a reservist position, I know, but still a part of the military. Because of these factors, the Navy felt that they had some say in what disciplinary actions should be taken against the task force that killed one of its active duty members. And yes, I know that Captain Grover, you've been cleared as HPD has since found where the petty officer had thrown his gun during the chase, unknowingly to you, and knew that you were acting on the good faith that he had had a weapon when you started chasing him. But there is obviously still the matter that your team butted yourselves into a situation that was already handled and that resulted in the death of an individual who had been coerced into committing a crime, and whose children had been kidnapped. You can see how they might be a tad bit unhappy about the whole situation."

"But Steve would never just leave us like that. If the team were going down, he'd be right here with us. He'd never leave us to deal with the consequences of this afternoon on our own. He firmly believes that the buck stops with him," Chin responded, his emotions started to unravel just a bit, "and so with all due respect, I don't think you're telling us the whole story, sir."

Denning's eyes narrowed just a bit in annoyance. "Let me be more clear. Commander McGarrett did not escape punishment, though I can see how it must feel that way when he has left you to deal with a different reprimand. Yours being this: The four of you will be suspended for two weeks without pay while I conduct the search for a new head of this task force, one who will presumably play better with others.

"Because, you see, the buck did stop with him, and so I offered Commander McGarrett the choice to step down as leader and continue to serve Five-0 after his suspension under a leader of my choosing, or resign altogether. It is, after all, only fitting that the Commander should removed as the head of this unit, but I gave him the option to remain with the team. The Commander, however, chose to resign from the team and work out whatever he could with the Navy. To be honest, I'm assuming that he'll be leaving Hawaii immediately."

Danny felt like his heart had dropped out of his chest, through his legs, out the floor, and into the ground below at Denning's statement, the way he had so casually thrown out there that not only was his partner off the team, he was apparently back in the Navy, probably off island already, and _oh by the way_ , had done so all of his own free choosing. He was pure devastation for a moment, not caring about his own upcoming suspension, and then he just felt numb.

Steve, who he had given up so much for, who he had worried and fretted over, who he had poured his heart out to on multiple occasions, who he considered a brother...he'd just up and left, like in the end, none of it had mattered. And after that realization hit, it was like something inside of Danny broke, and he just couldn't even begin to process it. He distantly registered that he'd be very, very angry when he did come to fully realize what was happening, but for the moment he almost enjoyed the sense of senselessness he felt right now.

He allowed himself to zone out, to ignore the rest of the discussion, ignore the rest of their punishment, ignore the rest of his team, and most certainly to ignore the voice in his head that mocked him for suspecting something like this was going to happen earlier, and then backing down and thinking everything would be okay.

He let himself be totally adrift and unthinking, coming back to himself only when he felt a hand clap him on his shoulder, and looked up to see Kono guiding him out of the governor's office, her other hand dragging her cousin along behind her. "Come on, guys. I think all of us could use a drink."

They wound up at a bar that they had frequented multiple times as a team, and even the thought that their team was no longer whole, no longer what it was twenty-four hours previous didn't start to burn away at the edges of Danny's numbness. The four of them sat at their normal table, a little roomier than usual, not saying much and the longer the silence drug on, the more angry Danny finally started to get. Finally, he slammed his third—fourth?—drink on the table, and pushed it away from him, still somehow in enough control of himself not to slam it on the floor like he wanted to. "This is bullshit."

Kono met his eyes, and Danny could see the same fire of betrayal burning in her eyes. "Yeah, pretty much."

"It's just, he just… _left._ " He tried to keep his hands in his lap, tried to resist the urge to break something. "All those times he bitched about people doing it to him, all the times that he apologized for doing it to us, promised he'd never do it again—it meant nothing. He still just left."

"Maybe there's more to the story, more than we know," Chin cut in, rolling his beer bottle between his hands. "Denning was careful to say that he was only able to give us 'the facts as he knew them'—what if that means there's more than he knows, and there's something bigger going on?"

"Right, sure, because if there was something else going on, Steve wouldn't be too chickenshit to let us know? You think that if there was some sort of big conspiracy here that Steve wouldn't try to find a way to say something to us, to say goodbye? I think what's happening is exactly what it looks like: McGarrett chose to do whatever the hell he wanted and chose to do whatever the hell benefitted him the most because he's selfish and stupid and is now too gutless to even have the decency to tell us what he's doing."

"You know that's not true," Chin tried to reason. "Steve has been many things, even been stupid sometimes, but when has he ever been selfish?"

Danny was too angry now to recognize the validity of Chin's words, to acknowledge that in his rage he was selling Steve short on so many levels. He was too furious to give Steve any credit, any sort of reprieve. "He probably knew the second that he walked away from that crime scene today that something like this was going to happen, and never once did he think that it was a good idea to maybe, I don't know, pick up the phone and say goodbye?" He didn't want to hear what Chin was going to say, didn't want to give him a chance to respond and defend Steve any more, so he turned to Lou and let some of his viciousness float towards the former SWAT captain. "And you're awfully quiet over here, Lou. You going to just run away with Super SEAL too? Leave us all behind? Maybe back to Chicago?"

"Danny—" Chin started to reprimand, admonish, Danny didn't know, but Lou finally opened his mouth first.

"I'm sorry, guys, this is all my fault. If I'd just been slower, more patient at the scene, maybe all of this could have been avoided."

"No, this is all Steve's fault for dragging us there, going off halfcocked and insane as always," Danny replied, his agitation towards Grover calming in his inability to let anyone take the blame other than who he saw as the guilty party: Steve.

"Danny, I think—"

Danny cut Chin off before he could try again. "Look, Chin, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but honestly, I'm too pissed and too drunk to say anything nice or play like my best friend didn't just stab me in the back and walk away without a word, so I'm going to go get some air, and then I'm going to go home and try to forget that today, and maybe the last seven years, ever happened."

With that, Danny threw a few bills on the table to cover his drinks and then made his way out of the bar, fists clenching in rage but unable to hit the one person he felt truly deserved it right now. He hailed a cab, rode home with his blood still hot, and went straight—sparing one brief thought of thankfulness that Grace wasn't there that weekend—to his liquor cabinet, since nothing else seemed to be helping.

As he took a long sip of the whiskey in his hand, Danny gave into his anger, his sense of betrayal, and whipped out his phone to dial his partner's—ex-partner's—number with shaky hands. He waited, counting the rings, and let out an angry laugh when it rang right into voicemail. "Figures that you would let it go to voicemail, you piece of shit," he said into the phone, as soon as the beep indicated he could leave a message. "You're too much of a fucking coward to let us know that you were doing your own thing, making your own deal, and now we have to hear from the fucking governor that you're leaving? You're a real piece of work, Steve, just like your mother. I'm surprised you didn't just fake your death on your way out of town. You made me think we were friends, I stayed on this godforsaken island for you, and you just turn around and leave us all behind when things look to be getting tough. Well, I hope that the Navy gives you what you're so clearly looking for, and I hope that I never have to see your face again, and I hope that you realize that you destroyed the best thing that ever happened to you in your miserable life. Go to hell."

* * *

Danny awoke the next morning with a hangover, a headache, and only vague memories of the night before. He remembered the bar, he remembered coming home and drinking some more, and he remembered being a dick to the rest of his team, but everything else was sort of fuzzy.

Fuzzy, until he looked at his phone and remembered the voicemail that he had left the night before. He rubbed his brow for a moment, considering whether what he said had been taking it too far, whether he should call and apologize, but then the full weight of Steve's decision yesterday sunk in and it was all he could do not to leave another voicemail.

He sat up on his bed, anger providing fuel for wakefulness. The man he considered to be a brother, who'd had his back for the longest time, was just gone without a word, by his own choice, and now Danny had no idea when he would see that man again—if he'd see McGarrett again—nor if he would ever get the chance to really say all the things he needed to in person.

The uncertainty, the frustration, the sense of betrayal and loss hit Danny once again, and realizing that he had nowhere to go, nowhere to be, he laid back down on his bed and threw his arm over his eyes to try to block everything out. "Fuck."

* * *

Almost a week and a half into their two week suspension found the remaining members of Five-0 incredibly bored.

They had started meeting up for lunch, for dinner, a random coffee here and there, just to find something to do, some way to be together. They were each still trying to process things, and doing so in their own way, but being in the same place helped give credence to the idea that they were still a whole, functioning unit, even missing a core piece.

But being together meant that Danny had to listen to Chin call the governor every day, seeking an update on their missing commander.

Lou had withdrawn into himself a bit, still grappling with his own perceived sense of responsibility, and Kono had been stuck in the same angry phase that Danny was, but Chin… Chin was ever hopeful, ever optimistic that their dismal situation was somehow not as it seemed. He was holding firm to the idea that Steve wouldn't just leave them like that, and his unending hopefulness was starting to eat away at Danny. He knew that theoretically he should be the one fighting for Steve, fighting for the idea that he didn't abandon the team as quickly and as clearly as he did, but it went against all the evidence, and everything in Danny's nature. Being hopeful meant that when Steve didn't come home, when things didn't magically work out, he'd have to deal with that disappointment; being hurt and resentful, being full of doom and doubt meant that there was nowhere to go but up. He couldn't hope that Steve was coming back, he couldn't hope that he'd get the life back with his best friend that he'd been clearly taking for granted, because when it didn't come to pass, Danny wouldn't be able to withstand that heartbreak again.

So every time Chin picked up the phone and called Denning, ostensibly to see if the governor had made any headway on choosing a new leader for Five-0, and he would finish the conversation with, "And have you heard any news about Steve, sir?", Danny would just about lose it.

Today, they were all sitting in his living room, and when it reached that point in the conversation, Danny couldn't take it any more. He needed to hold onto his ever-growing grudge against his partner, rather than be thrown into the vast pit of self-pity and depression that he was knew was waiting for him. He couldn't let himself be sucked into the older man's conspiracy theories. Knowing he was close to reaching his breaking point, Danny stood up abruptly and walked to the door, throwing out, "I'm going to check the mail," over his shoulder.

Once outside, he didn't know what to do with himself, and so with a mental shrug, he actually did go over to check his mail, wishing that something in there would break up the routine and boredom that his days had become. He quickly pulled out the mail and starting thumbing through the pieces of junk and bills that provided no relief.

His heart lurched, though, when he realized he just might get his wish after all, as he came to a letter addressed to him in Steve's writing. Without waiting to go inside, Danny sank down on the curb, dropped everything else in his hands, and tore into the letter that was postmarked four days ago.

 _Danno,_

 _First off, let me say I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I can't imagine that any of this has been easy on you, and I'm more sorry than I could ever say about leaving you all like that._

 _The Navy doesn't know I'm sending this letter, and since my mission is top secret, I probably shouldn't be, but what the hell? I'm probably going to be dead in a few days anyway, so it's not like there will be any way to punish me._

 _But I had to send something because if I do die on this mission, of which there is a high probability, I didn't want you to hate me forever. I thought I did—I thought it would be easier for everyone if you all were so mad that it didn't matter what happened to me, and then a voice in my head that sounded suspiciously like you told me I was being an idiot._

 _See, here's what happened:_

 _When Lou shot that guy and things looked to be going to hell, I went to meet with the governor to try to fix things, to sort them out as best I could, but the Navy saw it as an opportunity. You see, they had just received intel about some bad guy in some place far away (see, keeping it classified up until the very end, Danno) and they wanted me to come and help take him out. They'd approached me about it before, but I told them no, that I couldn't this time, because Grace had that thing and Adam was going to get out and I had so much that I wanted to be here for. For the first time in my life, I said no to the Navy._

 _But when all this shit happened, they saw it as a way to force my hand, to make me come work for them again. They made me a deal at the meeting: do what they wanted, or they would court marshal me and have NCIS file charges against each of you. Probably none of it would have stuck, but I wasn't going to take that chance. Not when you have kids to be there for, when Kono is finally starting her life with Adam, when Chin just found Abby, when things are so good for Lou. Not when it could destroy all of your careers, and you'd worked so hard for that. I couldn't put you through all that, just because I didn't want to go and play Super SEAL again. It wasn't fair._

 _I should have said goodbye, I know that. I should have told you all the truth, but to be honest, I wasn't sure that if I had to go through that, if I had to try to say goodbye, that I wouldn't tell the Navy to fuck off, to give me the court marshal. I didn't think I'd be strong enough to go._

 _So I told the governor to tell you that I'd made my own deal, that I chose to leave, because in a way, that was true. I did choose to go rather than risk all your futures. I had to protect all of you, because I knew that it could get so ugly had I chosen to stay, and everything was solved by me deciding to go._

 _But I didn't want you to blame yourselves, so I wanted to you be mad, to hate me for what I'd done. I'd rather have you all think of me as a traitor than have blamed yourself for any of this, because this was_ _my choice_ _. I know how you are, Danno, and I know you would have let the guilt eat away at you because I wouldn't have been around for you to yell at._

 _But now…now I'm getting ready to get this show on the road, and I know there's a really good chance that I'm not going to make it out of here in anything but a body bag, and I realized that I don't want all of your memories of me to be tainted by your anger or thinking that I betrayed you. I know I'm really good at destroying everything I love, but I figured I could try to salvage this at the end. Even if you hate me now for making you live with this, at least you might not hate me so much as to not show up at my funeral._

 _If the worst happens, take care of Mary. Tell everyone I love them and that they were worth it. You were worth it, Danno, because you guys gave me family when I needed it, and gave me something to hold onto._

 _Oh, and one more thing, because I know you, brother: you're going to start beating yourself up right about now for a certain voicemail. And let me tell you , stop now—I knew what I was signing up for when I lied to you. And you probably weren't wrong about any of it. However this turns out, I'm not mad and you'll always be my best friend. Love you, Danno._

 _Steve_

Danny put the letter down, almost unable to see due to the tears coursing down his cheeks. He swiped at them roughly, trying to figure out how to process everything that he had just learned. It was unbelievable, it was terrible, and it was so utterly a Steve thing to do. Protect them all by sacrificing himself, decide everything himself and leave nothing to discussion.

He took a shuddering breath, trying not to think about the fact that this letter put everything in a whole new context, including the fact that there was a very strong possibility that he would never see his partner again, including the fact that the last words his best friend ever heard from him were terrible, cruel, vitriolic. That voicemail…

Danny stood up quickly, pushing away thoughts of what he had said and done, and instead focused on sharing what he learned with the rest of the team. He made his way back to his front door, the rest of his mail forgotten on the ground, and held the letter tightly in front of him as he made his way inside, just as Chin was finishing his phone call.

His tearstained face was enough to capture Kono and Lou's attention, pulling them away from whatever Chin was saying. Before either of them could speak, Danny thrust the letter towards them, and said in a broken voice, "I got a letter from Steve."

Kono was just standing up to take it from him, to read the terrible words herself, when Chin ended his phone call and looked up at the group. "The governor had news today—about Steve." Suddenly the focus shifted entirely away from the shaking paper in Danny's hand to Chin. "Whatever all this about, it's over, and, um, Steve is coming home."

Danny's head snapped up. "Home? He's coming back?"

Chin swallowed heavily. "Well, he's going to Tripler."

"Tripler? Why?"

"Why do you think, Danny?" Kono asked, her sarcasm doing little to cover up her concern. "Did the governor give you any details?"

Chin shook his head. "He said he'd fill us un when we got there. Said to meet him in about 20."

Danny stayed where he was, unable to move or even let his mind go to the idea of facing his partner after everything he'd said and thought and felt. He'd angrily railed against Steve for betraying them, but the truth put the onus of betrayal squarely on Danny's shoulders. So instead of addressing Chin at all, he simply thrust the letter towards Kono. "Here—this will give you the context."

He passed over the paper and then sank down in a chair, head in his hands. There was silence, the rustling of pages the only sound as they were passed around. Finally, Chin spoke. "What voicemail is he talking about?"

Danny couldn't lift his head, couldn't face them. "That night, after the bar, after we found out, I was drunk and I called him. I said a lot of things, a lot of bad things. Things I shouldn't have said. But I was hurt and angry and drunk. Very, very drunk. When I remembered the next morning, I was ashamed but still so pissed off that I didn't want to do anything about it. I didn't think that if I called back that I'd have anything better to say, so I left it and then as time went on, I felt worse but had no idea if I'd even be able to reach him. He could have been anywhere in the world, doing anything, and I had no idea how to get ahold of him, let alone apologize even if I'd wanted to. And I figured if and when he finally got back in touch, if we ever found out if he'd redeployed or was working on base, then I could deal with it then. And I convinced myself that he hadn't reached out, so he clearly didn't want to talk either. Until today when I checked the mail and opened that." His voice was broken at this point, and he could barely hold back a sob. "Some friend, huh?"

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see Chin, no anger on his face. "Hey, you were angry and grieving and did something dumb. So did he. That doesn't wipe out seven years of good. And it wasn't like you were the only one who was upset."

Danny snorted. "Not you. You thought it was something like this from the beginning."

Chin shrugged slightly. "I always thought he took more after his father, personally, and John McGarrett was as stubbornly loyal as I've ever seen. But I was still plenty mad, Danny, just in a different way. I may have suspected something larger at play, but I was beyond hurt that he left without saying goodbye—or anything at all—and I've been mad that he hasn't checked in. And believe me, I'll give him hell for dropping off the face of the earth like that when we see him." He paused for a second to let all of that sink in. "What I mean by all of this is that it could have been any one of us who left that voicemail."

"But it wasn't, Chin. It was me. We're all his family, but he's my partner, and I said things that, even if he forgives me for, still had to have hurt. How do I go to the hospital now, not knowing how badly he's injured, knowing he did this for us, with my last words to him being that I never wanted to see him again? How?"

Chin sighed and squeezed Danny's shoulder again. "Because you're sorry. And you owe him that much."

"I just…" The Jersey detective stopped, not knowing what else to say, how to vocalize the depth of his remorse and apprehension. "I know."

"Good, then let's go."

Danny nodded, then followed Lou and the cousins out to the cars. Chin instinctively seemed to know that Danny was in no shape to drive, and pushed him towards the passenger seat—a gentle reminder of what he'd lost, and it was all Danny could do not to break down in his own driveway. He opened his mouth to say something, to explain, justify, distract himself, but Chin just held up a hand. "Danny, you're not going to feel any better telling any of this to me. I can't make you feel any less guilty. You're going to have to work through that yourself and with Steve, and we both know the both of you have plenty of guilt to go around. So just don't hype this up in your mind anymore, okay? Or you'll totally psych yourself out and not be able to say the right thing when you have the chance."

"R-right."

"I'm not mad, Danny. This is a shitty situation, but we'll figure it out as a team, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Danny replied, not even sure if they were a team anymore. But he remained silent, stayed that way even when they got to the hospital, and met the governor and the others inside. Though once he might have stepped forward to take the lead, he hung back, letting Chin start the conversation.

Not that the Hawaiian man did it very subtly: "What the hell is going on?"

Denning sighed and then gestured to the waiting room seats. "Why don't we sit and I'll explain everything?" After the team complied, he sighed once more and then started. "I wasn't entirely truthful with you all the last time we met, when this whole catastrophe started. You see, after the shooting, I did feel that Five-0's leadership and methods needed to be evaluated. To be quite frank, I have donors with concerns, and the botched robbery became a very public reminder of that. However, it was never my intention to let the Navy use the situation to their advantage—though they clearly found a way to do so. When I met with Commander McGarrett that day, I was going to suggest his suspension, as well as putting an observer in place for a time to evaluate your team's practices and satisfy interested parties. The Commander had indicated that he would agree to these terms when the Navy interrupted our meeting.

"They were obviously not pleased by the situation, but to be honest, they seemed rather relieved that they had been handed a perfect scenario in which they could manipulate McGarrett's loyalties in order to make him agree to participate in one of their missions. I'm speaking, of course, of his loyalties to you." The governor paused for a second, looking down at his hands as though gathering his thoughts. "I want you all to know that I argued against McGarrett going along with what I felt was tantamount to extortion, but no protections I could offer satisfied his fears about what the Navy threatened to have NCIS do to the three of you. In the end, he agreed to do whatever the Navy asked, so long as they, in turn, promised to leave the rest of Five-0 alone and any discipline to my discretion. I encouraged him to let you know what had transpired and what he was agreeing to, but not only did the men from the Navy insist that he come with them immediately, but he also seemed to think it was better if you didn't know the details. Regrettably, I agreed to go along with his suggestion. I assumed he would tell you once he got on base or before he flew out."

"Do you know what the mission was?" Danny asked quietly, speaking for the first time since the car, something he knew Steve would have jokingly marveled at, had he been around. "Do you know what they wanted him to do?"

Denning shook his head slightly. "Not officially, and not completely. I will admit to eavesdropping at one point as they were leaving, and heard enough to know that it was highly dangerous, was a solo mission, and had something to do with a high value target in the Middle East."

"So how'd he end up back here?" Kono's voice was sharp, her disapproval of all of this clear. "If you let him walk away to something so dangerous, how come he's back?"

"All I know, Ms. Kalakaua, is that I got a call from Pearl-Hickam this morning that the mission was successful and that Commander McGarrett was on his way back to Hawaii on a medical transport. They informed me when he'd be arriving, and I relayed that information to Lieutenant Kelly when he called. I don't know anything beyond that, as I am neither family nor next of kin."

"No, that would be me," Danny said, standing and wiping his suddenly sweaty palms on his pants in one smooth motion. "I guess I'll go see if I can get an update."

Kono stood up with him, and at his questioning look, she shrugged. "You don't need to do this alone."

Danny nodded, not able to express his gratitude, and then made his way up to the nurses' station. "Excuse me? I'm looking for information on Steve McGarrett? I was informed he was brought in earlier."

"And you are?"

He almost replied that he was Steve's brother, that he was family, but at this moment in time, he wasn't sure if that was a claim he could still make; and that very thought pained him to his core. But he swallowed it down and simply said, "I'm his next of kin."

The woman behind the counter nodded. "I can page the treating physician to come and speak with you."

Danny nodded again absently, then paced in a tight circle in front of the desk next to Kono's still form, until the doors next †o him swung open and a doctor came out, making his way over. "You're here for Commander McGarrett?" At Danny's silent nod, he continued. "We received the Commander as a transfer patient this morning from a Navy transport. As such, most of his care happened outside my supervision, so obviously I can only give you detail on what's in his chart and my own observations.

"When the Commander arrived, he was under heavy sedation, which we're working to bring him out of now. This was most likely used to make him comfortable during his flight. The Commander suffered from a few different injuries, both of which he received surgery for prior to his arrival here. The first major injury, while less severe, will take longer to heal from—he broke his right femur in two places, and it wasn't a clean break. It was necessary to place a titanium rod in the bone to aid in healing, which will remain in the bone forever."

"And the other injury?" Danny asked, trying to keep the fear from his voice.

"The Commander has a gunshot wound to his chest. It was appears as though he was subjected to a beating at some point, probably when his leg was broken, and during this beating two of his ribs broke. When he was shot, the bullet lodged in one of those rib pieces and pushed the tip into his lung. He had surgery to stop the internal bleeding, and a chest tube was inserted to help re-inflate the lung. From the notes I received, his operations appeared to go fairly smoothly, all things considered."

"All things considered, Doc?" Danny was beyond glad that Kono had come then, glad she had been able to ask what he had been too scared to.

"Well, the Commander received quite a few blood transfusions during the surgery. This would indicate to me, as well as scans performed here, that the Commander was bleeding heavily from his wounds, and that they had trouble keeping up with the loss for quite a while. But the good news is that he's stable now, and I can take you back to see him."

Danny nodded once more, trying to process everything the doctor had told him. It was Kono, though, who once again helped save him. "Why don't you go in now? I'll go and update everyone and we can come back after you've seen him, so that we don't barge in all at once."

His heart swelled with gratitude, and he hoped that she could tell how thankful he was by the quick squeeze of her arm. He knew that she wanted to be rushing into that room with him, see Steve with her own eyes just as much as he did, but she also seemed to sense that Danny needed to be alone when he saw his partner for the first time, that he wouldn't be able to handle the situation with so many prying eyes. The look in her eyes said that she knew how he felt and he squeezed her hand once more as he walked away with the doctor.

As they walked down the hallway, Danny found his voice again. "You said that he'd been sedated on the way over from wherever it was that he was-is he awake now?"

"He's getting there," the doctor replied. "He was starting to show purposeful movements when they paged me, and I'm guessing that within the next hour or two that he'll be fully awake."

"Good, good, that's good." Danny's stomach, however, seemed to think that it was anything but as the butterflies started going in full force at the idea of having to face his partner, have to face him knowing what the last words he'd heard were. "That's great."

The doctor finally turned another corner and then indicated the room right in front of them. "Please have one of the nurses page me if there are any problems."

"Right, thanks." Danny shook the man's hand and then pushed his way through the door, knowing the only reason that he was able to do was was the knowledge that Steve wasn't awake yet, that he could push off that conversation a while longer.

But damn if it didn't feel good to see his best friend again, even if the man looked like crap. One of his legs was casted and elevated, the plaster going higher than Danny knew Steve would appreciate, and his chest was a myriad of bruises-where Danny could see it, anyway-as half of it was covered in bandages and gauze. The SEAL's eyes were closed, but Danny assumed one of them would have been almost swollen shut regardless, the beating that the doctor referred to completely evident on Steve's face.

Danny closed his eyes, trying to block out both the image in front of him and his feelings, but when a calming breath didn't work, he texted Kono to come back with the team along with the room number. After he tucked his phone back into his pocket, he took a seat next to Steve's bed, and grabbed the unconscious man's hand, gripping it tightly. "I know that there's going to be a lot of talking when you wake up, and I'm going to have to actually apologize when you can hear me, but there's a good chance that I'm not going to handle it well-at all-so I'm just going to put this out in the universe so that karma doesn't hate me too much for when I act like an ass later: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for what I said. So just hopefully you'll just instinctively know that, and we can use that as a starting point, okay?" He sniffed and wiped the traitorous moisture from his eyes, pulling his hand away quickly as he heard the door open.

He stood up and turned around as the rest of the team and the governor filed in, ignoring Chin's muttered curse and Lou's quick intake of breath to look at Denning's face when he saw Steve. He didn't know what he was looking for-guilt, maybe-but the man's poker face was incredible, and he barely let any emotion spill through. But despite that being the case, Denning was also the first to speak. "I won't stay and intrude on this time, but I do want to be informed when Commander McGarrett comes around, and I'll come back. He and I will eventually have some things to discuss, and I'd like to be able to see him doing better than he is now. I do want you to know, however, that I think this team has been through enough, and it is my intention to have Commander McGarrett reinstated as the head of Five-0 as soon as he's fit to return to duty." He made his way back to the door, turning around once more right before exiting. "I do hope you all know that this was never what I wanted. Despite some of the differences that the Commander and I might have, I would have much preferred him healthy, safe, and suspended compared to this. Please let me know when he wakes up and is ready to see me."

As soon as the governor left, Danny sank back down into the chair and everyone seemed to relax a bit. There was still a tenseness that Danny knew would only go away when Steve had woken up and the rifts between them had been healed, but even his asleep presence seemed to heal something, to erase some of the sense of hopelessness they'd been grappling with all week. Still…

"This is pretty messed up, huh?" Kono asked, breaking the silence.

"Well, a fake betrayal and a secret mission aren't usually how we end up with Steve in the hospital, no," Danny replied sarcastically. "And now we get to wait until the idiot wakes up to have an awkward conversation. Let the good times roll."

And they did wait, all of them together. They were mostly silent, exchanging only the occasional comment for the next few hours, not needing to say more than they had already said for the past few weeks, each of them burdened with their own thoughts of what they were going to say to their erstwhile friend and leader.

Finally, though, after what seemed like forever to Danny, Steve started making noises in the bed, eyes moving rapidly underneath his eyelids. Without having to be asked, Lou quickly got up. "I'll go get a nurse."

This was it, the moment that they'd been waiting for, and at the last minute, Danny chickened out. He'd been sitting by Steve's bedside all afternoon, but now, in this moment, he couldn't do it, couldn't be the first thing his partner saw. Without even consciously thinking about it, Danny quickly dropped his best friend's hand, and rushed to stand at the back of the room, not meeting Chin's knowing gaze as the older Hawaiian made stepped forward to take his place. "Steve, Steve can you hear me?"

Slowly, Steve's eyes flitted open, awareness not fully registering for a few seconds. Then: "W-where am I?"

"You're in Hawaii, at Tripler. You arrived here this morning, boss," Kono said softly.

Steve's eyes slid closed for a moment, swallowing against a clearly dry throat. "What day?"

"I don't know if I should-"

Quickly, Steve shook his head. "No, I um, know year and stuff," he said, sounding only partially still drugged. "Just want to know how much time lost."

Recognition dawned on Chin's face. "It's Thursday, Steve."

The SEAL nodded, eyes still closed, relief flooding his features. "Not too long, then." He paused for a moment, more awareness apparently coming to him as he opened his eyes to scan the area immediately around him. "Where's D-"

His question was interrupted by the return of Lou and the doctor, but Danny knew what his partner had been starting to ask regardless, but he still didn't step forward. He figured that Steve would notice him soon enough, and he needed those extra few moments to gather himself. It was so good to see his partner awake, to know that his best friend had come back, but he was such a maelstrom of emotions that he couldn't even begin to figure out how to proceed.

So he waited, as the doctor ran through his neural and physical checks and pronounced that Steve seemed to be doing well, during which time Steve's eyes had finally found his and Danny couldn't help but look away quickly. And he waited while each of the other members of the team had their turn to say what they needed to to the man in the bed.

He waited while Lou rattled off apology after apology, still clearly harboring guilt over his original role in all of this, waited while Steve calmed him down and they started good naturedly ribbing each other.

He waited while Kono lit into Steve just a bit, giving him hell for doing what he'd done, waited while she softened and leaned down to give him a kiss on the forehead and reiterate that while he'd have to make it up to them forever, she was _so_ glad he was home.

He waited while Chin told him he'd never doubted the SEAL for a moment, waited while Chin thanked Steve for having their backs even if it meant doing something so stupid, waited while Chin gripped Steve's arm tightly and told him what the governor had said.

Danny waited through all of that and came out the other end still not knowing what to say. As soon as Chin had finished speaking, they all seemed to turn to him, waiting now for him to speak. But he couldn't, not with everyone's eyes on him expectantly, and he still couldn't meet Steve's unwavering gaze.

Finally, after a beat of awkward silence, Chin took charge. "Well, the three of us are going to go grab some coffee okay, see about getting you some Jello for dinner. We'll, uh, give you two some time, okay?"

Danny wanted to glare, yell at Chin for his total lack of subtlety, but kept his gaze glued to the floor. The other three team members filed out quickly, and then the door shut and it was just the two of them.

"Danny-"

"Steve-"

They had both tried speaking and they had both paused now, unsure in ways that Danny knew they hadn't been since the early days. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, and so he shut it again, looking at everything in the room other than his best friend in the bed.

Finally, Steve tried again quietly. "Danny, I'm really sorry."

For some reason, even though Steve had apologized to them multiple times since waking up, that was the thing that triggered Danny's anger, and it was the first clear emotion, the first feeling that he could identify since coming to the hospital that he latched onto it without a second thought. "You're sorry? You're _sorry_? Sorry for what, exactly? Sorry for deciding to make an absolutely asinine decision without consulting the rest of your team? Sorry for deciding to leave without saying goodbye? Sorry for thinking it was better if we all just hated you rather than knowing what you had done? Sorry for making us think that you were just a dick who lied to us and betrayed us? Sorry for making me question our entire friendship? Sorry for writing that letter and pulling the rug out from under us? You're an asshole, Steven McGarrett! You're a total ass! You make a life-altering decision all by yourself, not realizing that it's life-altering for all of us, and then just expect us to be okay? You thought that we'd be better off thinking that you just up and left, and hating you, than knowing what you'd done? Because you somehow thought that being angry was better than feeling guilty? Well guess what, now we feel both! You just up and left and gave us no choice in the matter and expected us to be okay with your decision? And then I get that letter, that godforsaken letter, and it feels like all I can do to not blow my brains out because, because, _because_ , and you're sorry?"

"Danny, I know-"

"You know? You know what, Steven? Do you know that I haven't slept since you left because I was so mad and hurt that I couldn't breathe? Did you know that I have had no idea what to tell my daughter because I didn't want her to hate you like I did? Did you know that-that…" He had to stop, his voice getting thick with the emotion that he had been trying to push away, but it just made itself known with the wetness in his eyes instead. "Did you know that this is the second time today that I've cried over you, Steve? Because I got your god damned letter this morning, and I found out what you had done, and all I could think about was that fucking voicemail I left you that night. Because I realized that the last thing you heard me say before shipping out to a mission where you thought you were going to die was that I never wanted to see you again, that you were exactly like her." He choked down a sob, and then closed his eyes. He stayed quiet for a moment, and for once, Steve didn't try to fill the silence.

When Danny finally was able to talk again, his voice was quiet this time. "I'm so fucking mad at you for what you did and yet you apologize and I don't even want to hear it because all you should be doing is yelling at me for being the shittiest of friends ever. You should hate _me_ , should be kicking me out of the this hospital room for the things that I said to you, and yet you're sitting here apologizing. And it should be me saying I'm sorry because I was an asshole and I don't even know what to say to ever make up for what I said. And it's not true, none of it is, and then I just come in here and yell…"

"It's not entirely untrue either, though," Steve finally responded quietly. "My mother faked her own death and left her family because she somehow thought that that would be better than sticking around, whatever that brought. She manipulated all of us and then walked back into my life thinking that she could somehow undo it all. It's just what I did, Danny. I did what I thought I had to do to protect you all, screw facing the consequences here, let you think what you did, manipulated you because I thought it was better, and then wrote that letter because I was too weak to stick by my decision and thought that I could fix something before I died. And then I didn't even get that part right."

"You can't think that-"

"I know you're glad I'm not dead, Danny. I just…I'm saying I understand why you said the things you did, and I'm not mad at you for them, so you don't have to apologize. I'm not going to lie and say that it didn't hurt a bit, but I knew what I was asking for when I made my decision."

"I'm going to come back to what you said in a minute, because I do need to apologize, but did you really think that if you died that we'd be so mad at you that we wouldn't care?"

Steve gave a quickly aborted shrug. "I know that after learning of my mom's betrayal, if she had died right then, I might not have been so broken up about it. I guess I thought that it was easier to hold onto hate and anger than guilt for the rest of your life, because I know what living with guilt is like. It eats away at you and destroys you and takes away all the joy in your life, and I couldn't do that. Not to you especially. I figured that if you thought I was just a self-serving bastard that when I died, you might be sad but you wouldn't be broken by it. You'd move on and eventually my name would just be a reminder of an asshole that you used to know."

"You're a fucking idiot, you know that right?"

Steve went on like he hadn't even heard Danny, his voice still rough. "But then, I started worrying that if I died, what actually happened would somehow make its way back to you, probably through Denning's own sense of guilt, and picturing that was worse. Because I knew that you'd hate yourself then, and I wouldn't have any way to absolve you of any it. So I wrote that letter and hoped to hell that it got to you before my body did."

"But you made it back," Danny said quietly.

"Somehow." Steve's face went blank for a moment, and Danny knew that he was reliving whatever it was that he'd been through. "The mission was successful, but the extraction went exactly the way that we all thought it would-it was FUBAR'd from the start. It wasn't a perfect plan, but we had a short window of opportunity. I got really lucky."

"Yeah, a broken leg and a bullet in your chest seem really lucky to me," Danny responded sarcastically, but the fight had gone out of him. "I feel like we're just talking around in circles, Steve. I'm mad as hell that you made the decision that you did, but I shouldn't have ever said what I did, and I never should have thought you'd betrayed us. I should have known you better than that."

"You do know me, Danny," the SEAL responded quietly. "You knew me well enough to know that I still act like the lone wolf, and you ran with the information that you had to form a conclusion. You thought what I wanted you to think."

"Chin didn't." He wasn't trying to sound petulant, but he could hear the slightest bit of pettiness bleeding through into his voice.

"Chin's a whole hell of a lot more optimistic than you, Danny. I'm not mad at you for the voicemail, or for doubting me or anything. And I am so, _so_ sorry for doing what I did-I thought it was the right thing at the time, and I didn't think that I could go through with it if I saw you since I knew you'd be able to talk me out of it. But I should have called sooner, I should have said something before so much time had gone by because now…" Steve closed his eyes with a sigh, leaning his head back tiredly against his pillows. "To be honest, I'm worried that we're not going to get past this and I've ruined the best thing that ever happened to me."

Danny let out a long breath and settled into the seat next to his partner, grabbing his hand in the process. "You know what I just realized, right now in this moment? I'm not mad anymore. We're sitting here yelling-okay, well I'm ranting and yelling and you're letting me, so who's feeling guilty now?-and, not to be too sentimental, it's stupid because you're here and you're alive. Which is clearly a state of being that we're lucky to have you in. So screw the rest of it, okay? You made a mistake, I made a mistake, but you're here now and you're coming back to Five-0, and all the other details can be worked out since we now have the luxury of time and, you know, being alive to do so. So yeah, we're going to get past this and you're going to go back to annoying me by driving my car and insisting you're right all the time, and I'll annoy you by actually being right. Right now, I just want to say that we agree that we're both stupid and move on, okay? Let's just be grateful and happy and normal for now."

Steve's eyes were bright and full of the emotions he didn't feel like sharing aloud, but Danny saw the uncertainty and hope that were there anyway. And then he blinked and it was gone, but Danny truly knew they would be okay when Steve nodded, and then opened his mouth and said, "Our shrink is going to have a field day with this."

* * *

 **I may have rushed the ending but a) I was getting close to 13,000 words and b) sometimes even Danny gets tired of talking.**

 **I'd love to hear your thoughts because I am _soooooooo_ nervous about publishing again, so drop me a review! And if anyone has any prompts they're dying to see play out in this series, let me know! **

**Charlotte**


	2. Gold

**First off, a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a review or feedback! It's very appreciated, as are all the favorites and follows. And, as always, thanks to all my guest reviewers who I don't get to thank personally.**

 ****VERY IMPORTANT A/N: Alrighty, so I lied to you guys just a _tiny_ bit in the last chapter. Part of the reason that the last chapter ended so abruptly is because I decided to use this story to finish it up! This is the ONLY time I'll be doing a two-parter for this series, unless something drastically changes in my plans, so no worries if you prefer everything to be standalone. **

**ALSO, I know that some of you weren't huge fans of how I characterized Danny in the last chapter and probably just groaned when you read the A/N above. Hopefully this is a bit more palatable to those of you, but either way no worries-we'll be off to a blank slate next chapter.**

 **Standard disclaimers apply, and any and all reviews are appreciated and welcome. I sincerely hope y'all like this one!**

* * *

" **Statues and empires are all at your hands,**

 **Water to wine and the finest of sands.**

 **When all that you have is turning stale and it's cold,**

 **Oh you'll no longer feel when your heart's turned to gold."**

Despite what Danny had said sitting in that hospital room, everything hadn't been okay.

Sure, Steve had healed physically from his wounds, though his broken leg had taken both more time and energy that Steve had wanted to give it, being able to return home on crutches sooner than Danny had thought the doctors would allow. He'd worked his way through six to eight long weeks of physical therapy and had eventually been cleared for light duty only a few days before.

But the Jersey detective hadn't really been around for it.

He'd come home with Steve when he was released from the hospital, had all but moved in with him for the first little bit to help his partner adjust to his temporary one-legged life, had constantly reassured Steve every time the SEAL apologized again and again for everything that yes, they were _fine_ , had helped him through nightmares that had left him shaky and pale.

Danny had asked what had happened at those times, and Steve would always respond that it was classified, that he couldn't give him details, that he could only say that he'd had to take down a high-value target in an location he knew well, that'd he'd almost been captured on the way out, that he didn't know if he'd be able to make it out.

And then, one night, Steve had added that he'd wished it had never happened.

Danny objectively knew the confession for what it was: a nightmare-fueled, PTSD-induced weakness that Steve would have never shown in the light of day. But for some reason, the whispered admission didn't make Danny sympathize, didn't make him help like it usually would have. He wasn't happy that Steve had opened up, hadn't felt anything at all except for an instant confused anger that he didn't tamp down soon enough. And so Danny had looked at his partner, his best friend, and said plainly, "It didn't have to. You chose this."

Instantly, Steve had pulled himself away from Danny, both physically and mentally, leaning away from his the detective as far as his injured body would allow, face carefully neutral and all sign of emotion or weakness wiped away. "Excuse me? You know why I did it. All of your lives and futures were in danger. I was protecting all of you."

Danny had heard himself speaking but didn't seem to have any control over his words, even as he knew that he was being a dick, breaking his promise that he had made so recently. "I think maybe you were protecting yourself too, Steve, because you couldn't handle the idea of having to hand Five-0 over to someone else and report to them." He'd known it wasn't fair, wasn't okay to say those things especially at that moment, but all the emotion and anger that he'd been pushing away since Steve had come home was suddenly all clamoring inside his head for recognition, and it felt like the only thing he could do was finally get it off his chest, that little sliver of petty anger that he'd been walking around with. They weren't event things he thought actively, but he was itching for a fight and his brain was supplying just the right words to get him what he wanted.

Danny had expected Steve to fight back, to defend himself, had wanted anger to match his own, had wanted a fight that would help burn off and burn through all his volatile emotions, had wanted a trigger to bring them back to what they were. But he was too harsh, said too much he didn't meant, and, instead of giving into Danny's twisted need, Steve had just shut down even further. With stiff movements, the SEAL had settled himself back down on his bed and then said in the flattest voice, "You can go, Danny."

And Danny had gone without a word, full of pride and resentment. Steve had thought he'd been through hell, but so had all of them here, and in that moment all of McGarrett's apologies didn't seem enough to soothe the ugly feelings inside of him. He'd stayed the night, sense of duty keeping him there, and while he'd cooled down quite a bit over the course of the night, he wasn't quite ready to apologize when Steve had gotten up. So they had awkwardly exchanged good mornings, and Danny had helped Steve with his breakfast and then he'd made an excuse to leave.

And then he didn't go back for almost a week.

The ever-loyal Chin had stepped up to help out, something that grated on Danny in a way he would never admit to, something that irked him for all those times Chin hadn't supported Steve when he'd really needed it. But while Steve couldn't drive, couldn't walk, he'd had a revolving door of Chin, Kono, and Lou there to help out, Jerry even stopping by once in a while.

Eventually, Danny had gone back, but there was a distance between the two of them now, one that everyone else could clearly feel but wasn't commenting on, obviously hoping that they'd work it out on their own. Sometimes, when the rest of the team would be out of the house, leaving the partners alone together in completely unsubtle attempts at forced reconciliation, Steve would open his mouth as if to say something, but then close it again, like he couldn't get the words out. Danny, for his part, felt both guilty and self-righteous, but couldn't even find the words to begin to heal this rift that had formed between them.

So they had continued to drift. Chin would drive Steve to physical therapy, disappearing during the work day to help out, returning with stories of how the SEAL was doing that Danny knew should be his. They had gone back to working cases, but were almost on light duty until Steve had come back, and Danny had been dreading the days until that happened. Because he knew that if they were going to make it as partners, if this team was going to work, they were going to have to put what Steve had done behind them, had to get past what Danny had said. But now, after over a month of strained silence between them, he didn't know where to begin.

And now, here he was, sitting in his office with the door closed, glancing occasionally at Chin and Kono speaking at the table, feeling like shit. He glanced down at his cell phone for some distraction, and then looked up in surprise as his door opened and Chin came in. The Hawaiian man pushed the door closed, and then sat down deliberately in the chair across from Danny, arms folded over his chest. "Alright, Danny, this is getting ridiculous. What the hell is going on between the two of you?"

Danny's eyebrows went up in surprise. "What, in all your special bonding time you've had McGarrett didn't tell you?"

Chin frowned, ignoring the jab. "He hasn't said anything, except that he screwed things up irrevocably, but from the way the man groveled to all of us when he got back, I have a hard time believing that. So no, I don't know what's going on, but I'm sure as hell getting sick of it. Whatever this is, it's clearly eating away at him, and I know part of the reason he's not healing as well as he wants is because his heart isn't in it."

"Not healing?" Despite everything, Danny couldn't help but feel a sudden stab of worry at that, and Chin's carefully, measuredly, blank look in response certainly didn't help.

"Danny."

He knew Chin wasn't going to drop it, and at this point, after so long, he was bursting with the need to just talk about it, to get advice, so he let himself get distracted from his question. "Steve didn't screw up, Chin, I did. Badly" He sighed, and then dropped his head into his hands. "We were doing fine and then one night he had a nightmare, and he told me that he wished that all of it had never happened, and I was…less than sympathetic."

"What did you say?"

Danny let out a mirthless laugh. "Oh you know, the best thing I could have said: that none of this had to happen and he'd basically brought on all this shit himself because he chose to leave. Oh, and also that he was doing it to save his own skin, not ours."

Chin sucked in a quick breath. "That's messed up, Danny."

The blonde looked up sharply. "You think I don't know that now? I just…he said that and I got mad. I got stupid mad and I'm not even sure why! It was like someone had flipped a switch, and everything that I had felt since he'd left that I hadn't been able to process or, I don't know, yell in his general direction, came back right at that moment and I was petty and mean. We were all _so_ mad at him. I was so mad at him because it was so much easier to be mad and believe the worst than recognize he hadn't betrayed us and process the idea of him being gone forever. I had so much that I was feeling and deliberately not-feeling, all bottled up inside me.

"And then he came back and he was hurt and so sorry, and we forgave him. I yelled at him and told him I forgave him too, but I guess I didn't say everything I needed to, or something. I don't know. I was just mad all of a sudden, because it seemed like every time he apologized, he said he was sorry for all the pain that he'd caused, not sorry that he'd done it in the first place. Which wouldn't have made me mad had I just done a little more soul searching before he came home, but I didn't and so it did. Then when he said he'd wished it'd never happened, it was like I just wanted to shake another apology out of him, or make him feel as bad as we all had."

"I'm pretty sure he did apologize for doing it in the first place in his letter," Chin replied quietly.

"Yeah, but I wasn't really thinking about that at 2am," Danny retorted. "Look, I realized the next morning that I'd messed up, but I also was acting like a child and wanted him to apologize first so that I didn't look like the idiot that I knew I was being. But he didn't, of course, and so I left, and I didn't know how to come back and make things better. I sat there and told him that first night in the hospital that I wasn't mad, that we were totally fine, that things would go back to normal, that I was just glad he was home—which was all true—and then I make the exact opposite happen. We're barely talking and when we do, I feel like I can't even read him. He won't let me in, and then I get discouraged—and annoyed—and won't be honest with him, and now we're just in this messed up cycle."

"Danny, just apologize, tell him what you told me. Tell him that you were dumb, and believe me, if you just start trying to make things better, he's not going to stay mad. He misses you, but he's too hurt to try to force you into any sort of conversation. And I know he feels like guilty about everything too, and thinks it's his fault, so he's just being stoic and bearing it."

"Did he tell you that?"

"What? No. I told you, he hasn't said anything, but I've spent enough time with him through rough situations to sort of get a read on what's going on in his head. You've been with him through more—you know this too. And it's not hard to tell he's miserable, you know? I could say the same thing about you, I might add."

"I don't know—"

"He's coming back to work tomorrow. You've got to fix this."

"It's been weeks, Chin. How can I just fix that?"

Chin shrugged his shoulders, a sympathetic look on his face. "I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm saying it has to be done. You are sorry, right?"

Danny nodded vehemently and he could feel tears prick at his eyes. "God, Chin, I know I fucked up, okay? I feel like shit about what I said, and I feel like shit about the fact that I was too proud to just say I was sorry and fix this when I had the chance. Don't you think I miss him too? I feel like I have this gaping hole in my life where my best friend used to be, and I hate myself every day for what I did."

"Then just tell him exactly that. He needs you."

Danny nodded once, once more. "You make it sound so easy, but I'll try, I promise."

"Don't try, do it. The both of you are depressing to be around when you're like this."

* * *

And he did try to do it.

Danny made sure he got to the office early the next morning, knew he'd be there even before Steve was thanks to Chin's text, and came prepared with the SEAL's favorite coffee blend and malasadas. He sat in his partner's office and waited for the other man to show up, anxious and antsy.

When Steve finally arrived, walking with only a slight limp, he didn't look surprised to see Danny sitting in his office, but the detective wasn't sure if that was because Chin had warned him or if Steve's poker face was just that good. Either way, McGarrett said something quietly to the cousins and made his way to the office that he hadn't been inside of for so long. The SEAL carefully put his stuff down carefully before turning to face Danny. His face was neutral, his tone nonchalant. "What's up?"

His partner's calm mannerisms did nothing to help Danny nerves, but he swallowed against his dry throat and pushed the coffee across the desk. "I was hoping we could talk, Steve."

"About what?"

Danny felt a flash of irritation at his partner's willful obtuseness, but tried to force it down. "Well, I think that's fairly obvious. Look, I know I completely and totally screwed up and I'm so—" He stopped as Steve's phone started ringing, and the other man picked it up almost immediately.

"This is Commander McGarrett." Danny waited for the phone call to end, stubbornly waiting as Steve hadn't asked him to leave, wanting to get all of this over with and behind them. But Steve was apparently going to use the call to avoid the emotionally charged conversation before them.

He waited through all the _mmhmm_ s and _of course_ s, trying to be as patient as he knew that he should and needed to be, and the moment that Steve hung up the phone, Danny pounced. "Steve, can we please just talk real quick? Before we get sucked into whatever's happening, can we please just talk? I have things that I need to say, that you need to hear, and we need to just deal with this if we're ever going to be okay."

Steve looked at him for a moment with such emotion that it took Danny's breath away, and he thought that he'd broken through, that he'd have a chacne, but it was just for a second. The emotion was locked immediately away and Steve's face was carefully neutral once more. "We've got a case, Danny. Let's go."

And with that, Steve was brushing past him, out of the office and then out of headquarters, sharing a car with Lou on the way to the scene. It hurt Danny more than he cared to admit, though he could see the pitying looks that Kono through his way as he climbed into the car beside her; he knew that his misery must be radiating off of pretty clearly, because before they were even halfway there, Kono asked, "How're you doing?"

He snorted sarcastically. "Well, let's see, I feel like if I left right now and threw myself off a bridge, I might be doing more good for my best friend than I have been in the entire month and am only really starting to realize how majorly I fucked up, so I don't know, Kono, how am I?"

"Well, he'd probably jump off after you, so I don't think that'd really achieve what you wanted," she replied with a small smile.

Her smile worked to thaw him just a bit though, and this time when he spoke, the irritation was no longer present. "You probably all hate me."

Kono shook her head quickly. "First of all, I don't pick sides between family members—it never ends well. Secondly, the past few months have been bad, Danny. He may have come back physically damaged, but you were hurt too. Having fallout from everything that happened, that's to be expected. I don't think anyone has come out of all this feeling like a winner. I'm here for the both of you."

Danny choked down the emotion in his throat that feeling supported had brought on, saying roughly, "Thank you," before taking a moment to compose himself. When he felt that he could speak clearly again, he asked a question that had been bugging him for a while. "Do you know something about Steve not healing well?"

Kono glanced at him quickly, concern all over her face. "What? No. Why?"

"I thought Chin said something along those lines earlier, but maybe I misheard."

"I know he's been frustrated with physical therapy, but that's it. He'd tell us if something was going on, right?"

Danny wasn't sure if the _he_ that Kono referred to was Steve or Chin and so didn't respond, but he knew that either way, he'd be the last to know if something was happening with his best friend right now. And he knew entirely whose fault it was, which didn't help make his mood any better.

* * *

Danny sighed and looked up from his paperwork for the first time in what felt like hours. Their case had turned out to be incredibly simple, a true open-and-shut case that they'd wrapped up neatly within twenty-four hours. But after all being on a case together for the first time in months, the backlog of paperwork was nearly unbelievable and Danny and felt like this was the perfect time to catch up, and give Steve the space he was so clearly craving.

He stretched in his chair and looked through the glass walls of his office to see where the other members of his team were. He could see Kono at work in what amounted to their small armory, Lou and Chin standing against the table, and Steve… Steve was nowhere to be found.

Danny tried to push down the interest that had piqued at this realization, knowing he had no right to question where their team leader was, but his curiosity wasn't easily assuaged. With a sigh, knowing that he wasn't likely to get the sort of answer that he wanted but probably the answer he deserved, he reluctantly opened his door and met Chin's eye. "Where's Steve?"

To Chin's credit, he didn't exchange knowing glances with Lou, didn't do anything that made it seem like Danny was the only one out of the loop, but something about his expression primed Danny to think that whatever came out of the Hawaiian man's mouth was going to be a lie. "He's at physical therapy."

"Huh. Wasn't he there this morning?"

Chin didn't miss a beat, making Danny doubt himself for just a moment. "Since it was a slow day, he figured he'd get two sessions in."

"He was gone for a few hours yesterday too. Also physical therapy?"

"Yep," Chin responded unhurriedly.

There wasn't anything that he could point to other than the feeling in his gut that something wasn't right, so Danny just nodded, not wanting to push the issue. "Any idea when he'll be back? We, uh, still need to have that talk."

Chin's mouth pulled down slightly in disappointment, but Danny wasn't sure whether it was with him in particular or because of the news he was about to deliver. "I'm picking him up afterwards and taking him home."

"Oh. I guess I'll check in with him later."

Chin offered a small, slightly sad smile. "You'll get back to what you were, Danny. You just need to talk to him."

"I—" Whatever Danny, both annoyed and comforted by Chin's slightly patronizing tone, was going to say was cut off as his phone rang. Looking down, he saw his daughter's name on the caller ID. "I've got to take this."

Chin nodded, and then right before Danny answered the phone, he opened his mouth again. "I was going to go pick him up in about five minutes, but I could probably get caught up with paperwork and he could probably need a ride from someone else."

Danny let the phone drop down, and brought his eyes back up to Chin's face. "I know we need to— _I_ need to—fix things, but earlier you said it might help him heal. Please, Chin, just tell me if he's okay or not. Whatever is going on right now, I love him and he's my best friend. He's the only brother I've got left. Please just tell me if he's okay."

The other man sighed and rubbed at his forehead tiredly. "Look, it's not my story to tell, but knowing McGarrett and knowing that he might be more fragile now with a new liver, you might be able to figure out that not all his disappearances are to therapy."

Danny could almost feel the color drain from his face. "Rejection?"

Chin's poker face was good, and Danny couldn't read anything from his entirely neutral expression. "You should probably head out—wouldn't want to be late."

Danny nodded, trying to process what Chin had implied and push it away at the same time. "Right. And thanks, Chin. Seriously." He stepped forward and hugged him without inhibition, suddenly overwhelmingly grateful for the steady presence of the Hawaiian man. Then, without waiting for a response, he stepped back and quickly made his way back to his office to grab his car keys, shooting a text to Grace on the way letting her know that he would call her later.

He fretted his whole way to the hospital, the sun feeling out of place with his mood. He parked in the shadiest spot that he could and then fidgeted in his seat for the next ten minutes, waiting for Steve to come out and wondering exactly what to say when he did. He started practicing things to say, rehearsing his opening statement and feeling like a lawyer, trying to find the exact right words to express what he wanted to say, when finally Steve walked out of the main doors of the hospital.

Suspecting what he did, Danny took a moment to look at Steve while the SEAL looked for Chin's car. In the moment that it took for Steve to search the lot and then lay eyes on the familiar and unwelcome Camaro, the Jersey detective was able to put his skills to good use and detect a few things. Steve looked tired, more tired than usual, and even with the distance between them, Danny could see the weary set to his shoulders that seemed to be mental as much as physical. He still looked like he was in pain, though he did his best to hide it the moment he'd realized it wasn't Chin there to pick him up. He looked, Danny thought, like shit.

Danny wasn't sure if Steve was actually going to even come over to the car or completely ignore him, and Danny couldn't help but let out a massive sigh of relief as McGarrett finally started to slowly, laboriously, make his way over. In response, Danny jumped out of his seat and ran around the car, opening the door and waiting with helping hand outstretched to help the other man into the seat if he chose to take it.

He knew that the very future of their partnership could hinge on that simple gesture, could be decided on if Steve was willing to take Danny's outstretched hand, his metaphorical and literal help, or not.

So Danny waited, hand outstretched as Steve stopped before him, barely daring to breathe, barely daring to make eye contact, just waiting to see if perhaps this was the time that he had done irrevocable damage to their friendship. His eyes slid closed as he awkwardly, silently, stood there for half a beat and then a longer one, heart in his throat, and then suddenly, he felt a hand meet his; and his eyes sprung open to see Steve's eyes, guarded and weary, meet his own as the SEAL took his hand and nodded in thanks, using the support to slip into the seat.

Danny exhaled loudly, feeling like he'd just run a marathon, and silently said a word of thanks to whomever out there was looking out for him, and then jogged back to his side of the car. As he slid into his own seat, he went to start the car, and then let his hands drop away from the ignition. Initially he'd wanted to wait, drive McGarrett home and get him into familiar territory before saying anything meaningful, but now he knew that he couldn't wait. Steve's acceptance of Danny even being here was enough to spur Danny into action now, and he knew that the moment couldn't be wasted.

So with his hands in his lap and his eyes on his hands, Danny finally said the words to his partner that he should have said weeks ago. "I'm sorry, Steve. I'm so, so sorry. I can't even begin to properly say how sorry I am, and I can't even make a joke about me being at a loss for words because I know that I've screwed up so badly to joke. And I'm going to keep on apologizing, but I just need to know this first: are you in rejection? Because if you are, I'll give you more of my liver. I don't know if I can do that, but I will because it might be the only thing I can do to make up for what an ass I've been, and so I'll find a way. I just need to know—what I mean to say is that I realize I'm in no position to make demands or expect you to tell me anything, but I would really like to know if you're okay or if you're in rejection and I need to start making phone calls."

A carefully neutral voice responded, but Danny was just grateful Steve responded at all. "You really don't have a right to know, but that's never really stopped you before when it comes to my health." Danny nodded, staying silent and not protesting Steve's apparent withholding, but then he glanced up in surprise as Steve's tone suddenly became just a shade lighter. "But since it's technically your liver, I guess you have a vested interest in knowing how it's doing."

"I…" Danny stopped, not even sure what to say.

"I'm not in rejection, Danny. They thought for a while that I might be, but I've had a series of post-op infections that are unrelated. Your liver is fine."

Danny let himself collapse against the steering wheel, not consciously realizing until that moment that the very idea that Steve could have been so sick, could have been dying and suffering by himself, was like a physical weight that only now was lifted. "Thank God," he breathed out, and then looked up quickly as he realized that might not have sounded like he had intended. "I don't care about my liver, Steve, I'm just really, really glad that you're okay. Not that having another infection is okay but I'm assuming that's easier to treat than needing a new organ so—"

Thankfully Steve cut him off and saved him from his endless rambling. "I knew what you meant."

"Good." Silence descended for a moment, not quite comfortable, but not quite as strained as before. "Listen, Steve, I want you to know that I am so sorry. Chin may have let slip to me that you somehow have managed to think that this entire mess is your fault, and it's not. It's just not. I opened my big mouth and said something I didn't even really mean and turned something great and golden into this—this mess. Honestly, I didn't feel that way, not truly. I never truly thought you were being selfish or that you had betrayed us—but it was so much easier to hold onto those feelings than think about what your decision would have meant, especially if you had died. I couldn't face that, couldn't imagine a life where you just disappeared like that, and it was easier for me to pretend to think the worst of you than face the possibility of mourning you. And when you came back—I don't know, maybe I hadn't processed all of that completely, or maybe I can only really show affection to your through fighting—I let my mouth get way ahead of my brain."

He paused for a second, trying to reel himself in, trying to contain himself before he let himself come apart. "I can completely understand if you want me out of your life, and I'll hate it, but I'll respect your choice. I hate myself for saying what I did, and I hate myself more for not being a better friend and saying sorry as soon as I realized I was acting like a three year old. I—"

Steve cut in once more. "Danny, take a breath and just stop. No, don't look panicked, I'm not about to tell you to transfer to HPD, don't worry. Right now, there's a lot that we could say and that maybe we should say, but I don't want to. I'm tired of fighting, tired of missing you, tired of trying to convince myself that space is better for both of us. I thought maybe you were still mad for a while and I thought maybe I was too, but…" He trailed off with a shrug. " _But_ I'm sorry too. So sorry. _But_ I know you, Danno. I know that you say things in the heat of the moment that you don't mean, and I also know that you're proud and pride gets in the way sometimes. Yours, and mine. I'm tired, I've been running a fever for three days, and I really just want to be able to have a cold beer with my best friend and bitch about the fact that my chest hurts and anything else I want. After all that we've been through together, I'm not willing to let all of that wither away just because we're both too dumb and too proud to play nice sometimes. Does that work for you?"

Danny met his best friend's strong gaze with a unblinking stare of his own, cheeks wet with tears he wasn't ashamed of. "You're a great man, Steven."

Steve nodded once, taking the compliment for once. "So are you, Danno. I know it wasn't easy coming here today and, to be honest, I'm really glad you broke down first because I'm really sick of being sick, and fighting you was taking all my energy. Also, I love Chin, but you're my best friend and I would like to have you around."

Danny cracked a small smile. "You're being very frank about your health all of a sudden. I should have given you an organ a long time ago and saved myself the stress of wondering how you were feeling."

Steve shrugged, a small grin playing along his lips. "I get honest when I'm irritable, apparently." For a moment, something akin to uncertainty flashed across Steve's face, and then he said quietly, "Look, I'm being completely serious about wanting things to be fixed and just moving forward to do that, but if you want to sit and talk about everything, I will. I've missed you and I don't want anything to go unsaid if it's going to hold us back, okay?"

Danny reached out and grabbed Steve's hand, feeling certain that the connection would hold even when he hadn't been only minutes before. It had felt like ages since they had been this open and honest with each other, embarrassment over revealing emotions stripped away by necessity. "Hey, listen to me. You know me, and how much I usually love to enjoy talking and making a point, usually in your general direction, but this time, I'm fine. Because realizing that there could be something seriously wrong with you and I had so stupidly and stubbornly let a rift form so widely between us that you couldn't even tell me about it was not a good feeling. This past month, I've sort of felt like everything I touch breaks, and I'd really like to stop feeling like that. So let's say fuck it all, let's go get a drink to celebrate being back on track, yeah?" He squeezed Steve's hand for emphasis.

Steve nodded, and squeezed Danny's hand back, the gesture saying more than any of their words could have. "Sounds golden. Let's go."

* * *

Almost a month had passed, Danny thought as he looked across the Camaro's center console at his partner, and it had been a good month.

There'd been a time not too long ago that he would have been certain, would have been absolute in the fact that he would have never have a good month again, as he had wrecked something precious. But now? Now it was he who was sitting next to Steve while they drove to a crime scene, not Chin, and it had been he who had started staying over at Steve's house while he healed, not anyone else.

Though it seemed crazy, it felt as though his relationship with Steve was almost stronger than before. It wasn't something he could explain to anyone else, knowing that they would look at him like he was nuts, like he was trying to overcompensate. But the truth of the matter was that it seemed like they had been strengthened by the hell they'd put each other through, not weakened by it. Danny knew he'd said some awful things to his partner, but he'd also allowed himself to be more open and caring than he had for a long time, too long, and they were more in sync than ever before. _So,_ he amended in his head, _I could tell Steve and he would know exactly what I meant_.

It had been a good month. Sure, they'd almost broken themselves, but they hadn't. They'd almost taken something wonderful and let it rust, but they'd saved it. They'd almost lost everything, but they didn't. And they'd moved on, with plenty of beer and a few more deep talks.

Danny thought back to Steve's words that day in the car, _"Sounds golden"_ , and smiled, almost without knowing it as he thought of how applicable that was.

"You good, Danno?" Steve asked, breaking through Danny's reverie, catching the small grin on his partner's face.

The blonde met his best friend's gaze right before Steve looked back at the road. He knew that at some point in the future, he'd have a snarky response, ready to bicker and fight like always. But right now, right in this moment he was still massively content with their happy state. "Yep, it's great."

Because despite what Danny had thought a month before, waiting for Steve to take his hand, everything had turned out okay.

* * *

 **I know I promised last time that the next installment would be up quickly and then that turned into two weeks (real life got a bit hellish for a while), but I honestly do swear that the next chapter will be up soon!**

 **I would love to hear your thoughts on this one, as I'm unsure (as always).**

 **Charlotte**


	3. Smoke and Mirrors

**Look at me, actually having this chapter up on time! Congratulations, me.**

 **A huge thank you once again to everyone who reviewed. and thanks to all the guest reviewers whom I can't thank personally. I really do appreciate all the feedback and support.**

 **Well, onto the next installment! No more continuity with the previous chapters-we're starting over here with a blank slate for our boys. Please let me know what you think!**

 **Standard disclaimers apply.**

* * *

" **All that I've known,**

 **Buildings of stone,**

 **Falls to the ground**

 **Without a sound.**

 **This is my word,**

 **Heartbreaker, gatekeeper,**

 **I'm feeling far away, I'm feeling right there."**

"Have you seen Steve this afternoon?"

Chin's question caught Danny off guard, his mind still working to finish up the sentence he was writing, and so it took him a minute to process what Chin had said. "What?"

"Steve. He's not in his office and I need him to sign off on some stuff for the governor."

Unhelpfully, Danny's first instinct was to look through the glass walls to his partner's office, though the empty chair made it clear that its occupant was somewhere else. His second instinct was to sweep the office with a quick look, not untrusting of Chin, but needing to confirm with his own eyes that Steve wasn't there. "No, I haven't seen him since lunch, actually. We were coming in and he said he left something in the car and that he'd be right up, but to be honest, I don't know if he ever came in. I got caught up in my paperwork."

Danny could see the quick look of worry that flashed through Chin's eyes, felt the same fear run through his own mind before reminding himself that Wo Fat was dead, that the big bads out there were dead, that Steve was safe. _At least the bad guys you know about_ , his brain threw out there quickly before he could stop it. "How long ago was that?"

Quickly, Danny glanced at the time on his phone. "Probably about an hour and a half." He tried to ignore the voice that whispered to him that that was plenty of time for someone to grab McGarrett, for them to hide him away somewhere the team couldn't find, but it was hard to quell the rising anxiety. "Have you tried calling him?"

Chin shook his head, letting out a deep breath as he did so. "I'll do that now," the Hawaiian man said, putting his phone to his ear. "You know he'd laugh at us for being worried, right?"

"Yeah, well, us being paranoid has saved his ass a time or two, so I don't care."

Chin smiled, his grin fading just a little bit as he dropped the phone away. "Voicemail."

"I can—" Danny was cut off by the chirp of Chin's phone, indicating a text message. "Is it from him?"

Chin's smile returned a bit as he read the message out loud. "'Sorry, can't talk right now but everything's fine. Had to run home and will probably be here the rest of the afternoon, so I'll see you tomorrow. Tell Danny I said to stop frowning at me and get back to work.' Well I guess that answers that, then. I'd worry that it was fake, but for the fact that he knows you so well."

"And you're just going to accept the random and vague excuse of 'I had to run home' from him? Run home for what? What if he's texting under duress? I swear we need a safe word."

"I don't think he'd be taking the time to make jabs at you if he was in some sort of trouble; in fact, I'm pretty sure that he'd find a way to let us know something was wrong. He is a pretty smart guy," Chin added with a rueful smile.

"Yeah, and he also attracts trouble like a magnet," Danny replied grumpily, not wanting to acknowledge that Steve was clearly fine when his gut was telling him otherwise. "Whatever, if the jerk wants to spend his day at home while the rest of us toil away with paperwork, so be it."

Chin just laughed, and started to move back towards his own office. "I guess that's one of the perks of being the boss, huh?"

Danny didn't reply, just rolled his eyes, and moved back to his chair, taking out his phone as he did. Regardless of what Chin thought—or would say if he knew what Danny was doing right now—Danny wasn't convinced that everything was okay. He couldn't ignore that unsettled feeling, that rush of anxiety from earlier that refused to dissipate, that urge to check in one more time and make sure that Steve was as perfectly fine as he had convinced Chin of. So knowing that Steve wouldn't pick up his call, he instead typed out a quick message: _You promise you're good?_

Steve's response was fast: _Fine—sick from lnch. Do I need 2 send u pix?_

Danny felt a brief rush of irritation at his partner's snarky response, muttering to himself that he was only trying to be nice and caring, but nonetheless sent back a benign reply: _No, thanks. Let me know if you need anything._

Steve didn't reply after that, but Danny forced himself to go back to work anyway. He sat, most of his mind dedicated to reading over the reports, fixing errors where necessary, but as he did so, he couldn't help but fidget. There was something bothering him, something nagging him, something poking at the back of his mind that wouldn't let him settle, but he couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was.

And then, as he was looking at one of Steve's notes on the casework, it hit him. Steve always wrote out messages fully and properly. He hated chat speak, and though he had never explicitly asked the SEAL why, Danny had always assumed it had something to do with the precision that the military had drilled into him. Steve had complained once, only half in jest, after receiving a text from Grace that was filled with abbreviations and substitutions; arguing that writing that way could let the intent of the message get lost. "And moreover, it's just sloppy, Danny," Steve had argued with a sigh. "It only takes an extra two seconds to type everything out and then nothing is left up to interpretation."

Danny had laughed at the time, had told him to try convincing his teenage daughter of that, but now that conversation was repeating in Danny's mind for a completely different reason. He dropped his pen and quickly grabbed his phone, staring at his partner's last message filled with missing letters and numbers in place of words that Steve would ordinarily hate.

And just like that, all the anxiety was back, coming to the forefront of his mind like he had never tried to push it away. He quickly dialed Steve's number, unsurprised when it went to voicemail, dialing it a second time just in case as he moved from his office to Chin's. As it went into voicemail again, he pushed open Chin's door, clearly not hiding his worried expression well enough as the Hawaiian man's face quickly morphed into worry too. "What's going on, Danny?"

"Nothing, I'm sure," the Jersey detective started, not sure how to explain what he was thinking without sounding paranoid, not sure exactly what he _was_ thinking. "I just can't shake the feeling that something's not right with him. I'm never going to be any use here when my mind is miles away, so I'm just going to run over there and double check that he's good."

Chin nodded, not saying anything for a moment. "If everything is fine, he's going to be annoyed." It wasn't a reprimand, though, or even phrased in a way that sounded like a discouragement; instead, merely an observation.

"That's fine, he can be annoyed all he wants. But we're the only people in his life that he has to worry about him, and I'm not about to let him down by ignoring my gut. If he needs us, if he doesn't, I'm there."

Chin nodded again. "Let me know if either of you do need something."

And that, right there, was why Danny loved Chin Ho Kelly as much as he did: he didn't argue, he didn't point out all the holes in Danny's logic, he just supported and buoyed you up however you needed. "You're the best, Chin," he threw out with a genuine smile as he backed away. "I mean that, one thousand percent. I'll let you know what I find out!"

* * *

Danny stood outside the McGarrett household, trying not to pace and failing miserably. Steve hadn't answered his repeated knocks, and Danny was torn between pretending to respect the man's privacy, and just using his key, to hell with respecting Steve's space. After pounding on the door one more time and still receiving no response, he reached a compromise in his mind: use the key, but send a warning text beforehand.

He quickly typed out a message ( _"I'm obviously here and I'm not going away until I see that you're alive. If you don't open the door in 30 seconds, I'm coming in.")_ , waited the appropriate time, minus just a few seconds, then slipped the key out of his pocket and into the lock, and made his way inside.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting to find when he walked in the door; images both of Steve locked in a life or death struggle of some kind, or a McGarrett extremely pissed at the violation of privacy had run through his mind on the way over. But he certainly didn't expect to find Steve wrapped in a blanket, looking almost as bad as Danny had ever seen him. He was pale and was shaky, more fragile than Danny was familiar with. His entire face was blank, but it wasn't the forced neutral expression that the SEAL would sometimes still adopt when trying to keep Danny from knowing what he was thinking or feeling; instead, it was almost a numbness, a forced nothingness. The fact that it took Steve a few minutes to look up from the couch and meet Danny's eyes only made the blonde more concerned. "When you said you were sick, I didn't actually believe you, but now…" Danny trailed off, moving closer to the couch when Steve didn't immediately tell him to leave.

"Just food poisoning, Danny, I'm fine. You can go back to work."

Danny raised an eyebrow at that. "You look like shit and sound like you've been in a screaming match with a drill sergeant. So I'm going to go with not fine. Also, you and I," Danny motioned between them, waiting just a beat for Steve to meet his gaze so he could make his point all the more clear, "You and I had exactly the same thing for lunch, and I'm right as rain. Want to tell me what's really going on here?"

Steve opened his mouth to respond when he shivered violently, and pulled the blanket more closely around him. After a moment, he seemed to collect himself, pulling himself back to the conversation at hand. "Then I guess I must be coming down with something."

"Uh huh," Danny responded, already moving forward to place a hand gently on his partner's forehead, mimicking the motions he used on his children when they were ill; as he was long past the point of trying to shy away from the fact that Steve McGarrett had come to occupy a place in his heart previously only occupied by blood relatives and his children. "You don't feel like you're running a fever, but clearly you feel like you are."

McGarrett moved to swat away Danny's hand, but the motion was halfhearted at best. "It's nothing, just cold. I just need to work it out of my system."

At that, Danny stilled. "Work it out of your system? First you've got food poisoning, then the flu, but now you're just working it out of your system? What the hell is wrong with you, Steven?"

"I told you everything was fine, Danny. Why'd you even feel the need to come over here?"

"It's a good thing I'm used to your 'I'm going to try to push you away when I'm feeling vulnerable' routine by now, McGarrett. Otherwise my feelings might be hurt." Slowly, he lowered himself to a seated position on the coffee table in front of his partner, intuiting that figuring out what was happening here was going to take a lot more time and effort than he wanted to give standing. "And in answer to your very obvious attempt to redirect this conversation, you used chat speak."

Though still strangely blank, that brought Steve's eyes up from where looking at the floor. "What?"

"Chat speak. You hate it, which I know because I've overheard the multiple conversations you've had with my daughter about being better than to use it, and because I've sat through the same lecture on occasion. So when you won't answer our phone calls and you send me a text message that is so supremely unlike you, I have to wonder if everything is copacetic. So if you really wanted to be alone in your current condition, you should have tried a little harder to seem normal." Steve nodded slowly, right before another shiver raced up his spine, and Danny's gut clenched with worry. "Steve, buddy, you're scaring me a little bit here. You look terrible, you've got this thousand-yard stare going on, and even though you're one of the smartest people I know, you're barely keeping up with this conversation. I just want to help, babe. Talk to me."

For a brief moment, Danny could see the calculations working in McGarrett's mind, the pros and cons of letting someone in being weighed out as though he were working the scales of justice himself. Every potential benefit against all the possible harm of opening up, the question of how honest to be pitted against the question of returns or betrayals, and Danny wondered what Steve had been like up until the age of 15, before his trust in the world was broken. He wondered what the man sitting before him would have been like without the Navy there to exploit all those cracks in his soul.

And then the moment was gone, and a slightly crazed calm look settled in Steve's eyes. It was a _fuck it_ look if Danny had ever seen one, and his partner's suddenly direct tone match his apparent mood shift. "On one of my tours, I got stuck outside overnight, miles away from the base. Things…happened, and the end result was that it was just me and this other kid, younger than I was, greener too, out in the middle of the desert. And people always just assume that because it's a desert that it's hot, right? But when it's winter, and when it's a cloudless night…I think even without the blood loss, it would have been the coldest thing I've ever experienced. We were only out there two nights, but it seems like it took me two weeks to get warm again." He paused for a moment eyes someplace else. "I thought we were going to die, freeze to death right out there under the stars. This kid, he kept looking at me and saying in amazement how cold it was, like no one had ever warned him that it could actually be winter in that part of the world. Here I am, trying not to fucking bleed out and leave this kid all alone, and all I can think about is the fact that someone should have told him, should have prepared him."

Steve stopped speaking, and Danny's mind was trying to process, trying to make sense of this random, jumbled story that had been thrown at him. "I don't…"

And then he did.

He remembered grey clouds rolling in as they were driving back from getting lunch, remembered stepping out of the car and cringing at the crispness in the air, remembered saying incredulously how cold it was, letting his tone finish the thought of _but it's Hawaii, but it's paradise, but it's supposed to be tropical_ without saying the words. He remembered rushing inside, and hearing Steve call out that he'd be right up, and then Danny had walked into the Palace without another thought until Chin had come knocking on his door.

He didn't know and then he did, and Danny wished he could have gone back to his moment of blissful ignorance more than anything. But he couldn't, and all sorts of feelings were wreaking havoc with his emotions, namely shame and guilt, and something that felt way to close to pity. Finally, quietly, he asked, "Have you been having flashbacks all afternoon?"

Steve's only response was a sharp nod, eyes closed and face drawn like he was admitting to something disgraceful.

"Fuck. So when you say you just need to get it out of your system, you mean because your mind has been—"

"Yeah."

"Are you still…there?"

Steve shook his head, letting out a long breath. "No, this is just what happens next."

Danny's next question tumbled out his mouth before he could stop them. "But you've been out of active service so long. Why now?"

The SEAL, because it was hitting Danny now more than ever that there would never really be an 'ex' before that descriptor, let out a humorless snort. "Some things stay with you, Danny, no matter how long it's been. I close my eyes, and I can taste the sand in my mouth, can feel the hardness of that place in my bones. I can see the bombed out homes, the places that got destroyed by one side or another, and I can hear the voices of the men I served with as clearly as though they were right next to me. When this happens, I'm not a reservist; I'm ten years younger and stuck in the middle of war. And right now, I can't get fucking warm."

There were a million things flashing through Danny's mind at that moment, one of which was a simmering and subtle rage at the fact that Steve didn't just have to live through these things once, but see them again and again in his mind. It wasn't fair, and it made him want to rage at the world for making the best person he knew suffer like this. Suffer alone, too, because while Danny knew cops that had dealt with flashbacks and could relate to what they were going through, here he was at a loss. He'd never known the horrors of war, had been spared such a thing by men like the one sitting beside him, and he didn't know what to say to make any of this better. Words like _I'm sorry_ and _it'll get better_ seemed hollow and empty, not strong enough for the magnitude and complexity of the situation, and Danny was out of his depth when words couldn't fix the problem.

So, knowing he couldn't offer any words to make his best friend feel better, he did the next best thing. Without saying anything, he hauled a rather stunned SEAL to his feet, and started pulling him outside, blanket balled up in his hand.

"Danny, what are you doing?"

"You can't get warm, you say, and I say we live in one of the warmest places ever."

"It's not that easy, Danny."

Danny didn't say anything until he'd pushed Steve into one of the deck chairs unceremoniously, and then turned to face him. "I know it's not that easy, Steven. I know that there's a lot of shit going on in your head right now, which I may or may not have unintentionally triggered by complaining about the weather today. I also know that you clearly would rather be dealing with this on your own, since you came and hid out here, and that is well within your rights as a veteran, since I am not a vet and do not have the same experiences to pull from. But I also know that sometimes, when things are going wrong up here," he said, tapping Steve's forehead gently, "breaking the cycle or changing the scenery can help."

He paused for a second, suddenly second-guessing everything that he was trying to do, before he took a deep breath in and pushed on. "Obviously my daughter's nightmares are not the same thing as having war flashbacks, but when she was little and had a particularly bad dream and she'd come running to me, I'd make her tell me a story about something happy and fun before putting her back to bed. So there you are, inside, freezing, probably stuck on some loop in your head that you can't get out of until your pain in the ass partner comes knocking. But now, now you're out here in the nice Hawaiian sun—well mostly nice, since we're a few degrees below our normal temperature, but my point stands. Every time you start to feel that cold in your bones, focus on the feeling of that sun and remind yourself that you're thousands of miles and days away from that. And once we get you warm, then we can work on everything else."

For a few moments, the only sound was the gently lapping of waves on the beach in front of them, McGarrett actually listening to Danny for once and sitting with his eyes closed, face tilted up in the afternoon light. As the sailor sat there, Danny slowly moved backwards, making himself comfortable in the chair next to his partner's, all the while watching Steve's face for any more signs of distress. But instead, as he sat and watched, he saw a few lines soften, and slowly, Steve seemed to stop holding himself so tightly together and sank into the chair just bit.

That last movement gave Danny just enough courage to finally say the last thing on his mind. "I'm sorry, Steve."

McGarrett opened one eye slowly to glance at Danny before closing it again. "I know my brain is a little bit funny right now, but I swear you just apologized for me having issues from something that happened long before I ever met you."

The Jersey detective sighed. "Clearly I know I am not the cause of this, though maybe slightly the instigator this afternoon—"

"—Danny, this is not—

"—but what I meant is that I'm sorry this is happening to you. That it happens at all."

At that, Steve finally sat up a little bit, pulling the blanket tightly around him, though Danny wasn't sure if the action was conscious or not, and looked at Danny with clear eyes. "I knew the day that I decided to be a SEAL that I was going to be seeing things, doing things, that were going to bring me face to face with the worst parts of humanity. I was prepared for the fact that I was going to be going into the toughest situations, and I knew that even if I got out alive, I wasn't always going to come back whole. If I hadn't wanted to deal with any of the after effects of that life, I would have rung that bell on the first day of training."

"That doesn't make it right that you're having to deal with waking nightmares."

"A lot of people deal with a lot of shit that they shouldn't have to," Steve replied with a shrug. "Everyone has their own battles."

And Danny knew then with McGarrett's matter of fact tone, had really known it all along, that no matter what he said or did or felt, Steve was always going to accept this as just something he had to go through, something that was a guaranteed side effect of the life he'd chosen rather than the inevitable injustice of war that Danny knew it to be in his bones. Steve had recognized and submitted to what he saw as a natural consequence, not a sacrifice he shouldn't have had to make.

Danny knew that he could try to press the issue further, keep going until Steve saw Danny's point, pushing until the SEAL realized that not accepting such occurrences as normal and also not regretting his service could go hand in hand; but in the end, they'd still be right where they were now.

So instead, Danny just sighed and nodded. "Well, regardless, I'm sorry that this is the burden you have to bear. I wish I could do something more to help. You should let me know if you have other triggers, things that I can avoid saying or doing, or situations that we should keep you out of. I don't want this happening again."

"Danny, stop." Though still clearly emotionally and physically exhausted, there was a bit of levity to Steve's voice that hadn't been there before, and it calmed the Jersey detective just a bit. "First of all, this isn't the first time this has happened since leaving active duty, nor will it be the last, and that's just how life is. Secondly, there's nothing in my routine that I need to change, nor do I need you walking on eggshells around me now. Besides, I've known you for seven years and you're not one to be polite just for the sake of someone else's feelings." The last part was said with a smile, immediately quelling Danny's immediate defensiveness. "And finally, you did help—a lot. When I have flashbacks, it's not a fun process, and trust me when I say that tonight is not really going to get a lot better. _But_ you coming here, you forcing me out of my normal way of handling this…it helps. It means something. So don't sell yourself short, yeah?"

Danny nodded again, this time not speaking because of the lump in his throat. It was things like this that always served to remind him of how grateful he was to have Steve in his life, much as he might complain sometimes, and always served to remind him that fate just kept saving Steve one more time, making sure that he'd made it out of that desert and into Danny's life.

So he just nodded a third time, and settled in, ready to help with whatever else the night brought.

* * *

 **And there we have it! Danny's advice on how to help get rid of nightmares is actually something my mother used to tell me as a child, which inevitably ended up with lots of imaginings of spiders as being turned into cute fuzzy unicorns instead of the hellish demons they are. ;)**

 **Also, a very huge and sincere thank you for any vets who might happen to be reading. Thank you for making the sacrifices that you do so that the rest of us don't have to.**

 **Anyway, the next chapter should be up within a week or so! Any thoughts are welcome!**

 **Charlotte**


	4. I'm So Sorry

**And here we are with Round 4!**

 **Thank you to everyone who left reviews on the last chapter, and thanks once more to all the Guest reviewers that I can't respond to personally. Y'all are beyond wonderful, and never fail to make my day!**

 **A/N: Speaking of Guest reviewers: If you happen to be the Guest reviewer that left me a note with concerns about possible plagiarized copies of my story"Bleeding Out" floating around, just an fyi that both are my stories and my versions! One is posted in my story "Night Visions" and one is posted as a standalone as I purposefully wrote two different endings. But a huge thanks for bringing it my attention regardless!**

 **All standard disclaimers apply, and all thoughts are welcome! Also, fair warning, I'm playing a little bit fast and loose with some medical procedures, so if anyone in the medical profession is reading this, please don't hate me.**

* * *

" _ **Life isn't always what you'd think it'd be,**_

 _ **Turn your head for one second and the tables turn.**_

 _ **And I know, I know that I did you wrong,**_

 _ **But will you trust me when I say that I'll**_

 _ **Make it up to you somehow, somehow."**_

"Excuse me?" McGarrett's authoritative ton rang loudly across the crowded yard.

The young officer in front of Steve and Danny swallowed nervously, clearly not expecting that response. "I'm sorry, Commander, but no one is allowed to go in on the orders of the CDC."

Danny could almost see his partner's inner conflict, watched as the SEAL forced his respect for federal authority to the side for a moment to deal with the issue at hand. "There is a body inside that house, the body of a mother, with a scared child, all alone, sitting beside it. You really think there's any way in hell that I'm not going to do something about that?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but you got the call to come out before anyone realized what was happening. But unfortunately, once we realized that the Ambassador had died of something that appeared to be contagious and made the appropriate calls, the CDC ordered the house to be quarantined until the specialist arrives."

"And when will that be?" McGarrett's tone was calm, but deceptively so, for Danny could hear the ring of steel behind his words. "Do we have any sort of ETA on when the specialist is going to show up?"

"Well, sir," and dammit if Danny couldn't see the younger man swallow every time he anxiously said _sir_ , "she's currently on Maui. She's getting here as soon as she can."

"And the girl? Has anyone checked her out? Is she sick? Do we have contact with her?"

"A medic looked her over when he first arrived on the scene, but when he suspected it to be some sort of pox, he left to make the necessary notifications. Since then, he's remained outside and quarantined as well. We do have video contact with the girl, though."

Steve sighed, running a hand agitatedly through his hair. "And this medic didn't think just to remain with her after his initial exposure?"

"I don't know, sir—"

"Do you at least know her status?"

"She, um, appears to be infected with the same thing, sir, but was at least healthier than her mother."

At that point, Danny couldn't help but interject. "Oh really?" He asked sarcastically. "I'm so glad you could clear up that confusion for me, since I wasn't sure if the living girl was healthier than her dead mother or not." The officer paled even further, if that was possible, at Danny's remark. Before the young man could say anything else to dig himself in a bigger hole, Danny took pity on him. "You can go now, Officer Pua. Why don't you go try to get in contact with the CDC specialist again to get an update on timing, and then let us know, okay?"

The young man practically scurried away, and Steve met Danny's eyes with a slight smirk. "I think you practically petrified the guy, Danny."

"Me?" He poked Steve's chest hard, right in the middle. "You! I didn't do anything, Mr. Shoot the Messenger."

Steve smiled and then turned serious again as he turned towards the house. "I know there's protocol for a reason, Danny, but we can't just leave a sick kid in there, next to her parent's corpse."

"Believe me, I'm right there with you, but we also have to mitigate the risk to the rest of the island. Something, I might add, that I feel like you should be telling me, not the other way around."

"I get that, but… Losing a parent is hard enough as a kid, let alone having this added horrible twist to the story."

"Ah." Suddenly Steve's behavior made a little more sense to Danny. "I get that, I do, and as much as I want to be able to get the girl out of there, we can't risk killing all of Oahu. How about before you go charging in there and doing something that will make the federal government really unhappy, we go check in on her on the video link they have set up, yeah?"

Steve nodded, the general air around him still carrying an air of distress. As Danny and he went over to the impromptu commander center that had been set up, the Jersey detective briefly placed a comforting hand on his partner's shoulder and squeezed lightly, trying to subtly send some support.

He wasn't sure if it worked or not, but at least when Steve approached the officers huddled around a computer screen, his voice was calm and collected. "I understand we have contact with the daughter?" One of the officers nodded and moved aside, unblocking the view that the computer offered: a sickly, scared looking preteen with pustules spread across her face, staring sadly at something off-screen. "What's her name?" Steve asked quietly.

"Maddie. Maddie Winston."

Steve nodded, and Danny watched as he carefully schooled his features before stepping up in front of the computer's camera. "Maddie? My name is Steve, and we're working on getting you out of there, okay? How are you doing?"

Maddie looked at the camera, running a visibly shaking hand through her hair. "Okay, I guess. I just would really, really like to not be in here anymore."

Steve nodded, and only because Danny knew his partner so well could he see the subtle tightening of his features that indicated his anger at the helplessness of the situation. "I know, Maddie, and we're working on that right now, okay? We've got someone coming to help, and I'm going to be right here the whole time, so you're not going to be alone. We're going to get you out of there as soon as we can."

"Couldn't I just come outside? Isn't there some place that you could let me stay outside? Or just drive me to the hospital? I just r-really don't want to be in here with my m-mom's b-body." She was crying by that point, and Danny was quickly coming around to Steve's idea that certain rules were meant to be broken. "P-please."

She was crying harder now, and for a second it seemed as though the crackling sound of her cries through the speakers were louder than all the other sounds around them. "Maddie, listen to me, just real quick, okay? I lost my mom when I was not too much older than you are now, and it was awful," Steve said quietly, and it struck Danny again that was Doris was his mother, she sure as hell wasn't his mom. "I know that what I went through and what you're going through are completely different, and I know that what you're experiencing right now is so horrible that not one of us here would want to be in your shoes. But you want to know what I know? I know you're a thousand times stronger than I was when I lost my mom, and I know that you're so brave for hanging in there as long as you have. We're going to get you out of that house really soon, okay? I just need you to be brave for a little while longer."

Maddie nodded tearfully, seeming to pull some strength from Steve's words. "H-how did your mom die?"

"She was in a car accident," McGarrett replied, either not realizing or completely ignoring the looks he was getting from the rest of the officers surrounding them; though whether because they knew the story to be somewhat untrue or they didn't know the story at all, Danny wasn't sure. "I felt really alone when it happened, and really scared because I knew that everything was going to change but I didn't know how yet—and I'm betting you're sort of in the same boat, huh?"

"Y-yeah. My dad isn't really around, so it was just Mom and me, and now I don't know what's going to happen to me."

"Do you have any aunts or uncles?" Steve asked, his tone still gentle.

"My aunt lives in California—we visit her a couple times a year." The girl's voice had become calmer, more focused, and Danny was glad that Steve was directing her mind elsewhere, at least for a little bit.

"That's great, Maddie. How about you give your aunt's information to Officer Pua here, and we're going to make sure that your aunt is here as soon as she can. And in the meantime, I'm going to go call our specialist again, okay?"

Maddie nodded again, and then refocused her attention on Pua as he stepped forward to take McGarrett's place in front of the computer, his words just audible as the two members of Five-0 took a step back. "She's not going to make it in there much longer, Danny," Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck in a sure sign of frustration.

"I know," Danny replied quietly, shooting a worried glance towards the house. "I just don't know what other options we have."

"I'm thinking—" Whatever Steve was about to say, whatever bright idea he'd been about to share, was lost as Pua suddenly yelled out for help, and both Steve and Danny's attention was immediately dragged back to the computer and Pua's stricken face. "What's going on? What's wrong?"

"We were talking, and then all of a sudden she started having problems breathing," Pua responded, stepping aside so that both Steve and Danny could see the image on the screen of Maddie with her hands to her chest, wheezing and fighting for breath, panic written all over her face.

"Where's the medic?" Danny demanded before McGarrett could even open his mouth. "He's got to get back in there."

"Last time I checked, he'd quarantined himself in his ambulance."

Steve nodded. "Officer Pua, keep her calm and make sure she knows help is coming, okay?" Then, without another word, he was marching in the direction of the bus, Danny rushing to keep up with him.

As soon as they got to the ambulance, Steve ripped the back doors of the truck open, much to the ire of the man inside. "Hey! What are you doing? I need to be contained!"

"You have a mask and gloves on, and right now, you need to go back inside that house because that little girl you left in there is having trouble breathing."

The EMT instantly shook his head, eyes wide. "Listen, I'm not going back in there. When I saw those pustules, I got out there as fast as I could, and I am not about to go back inside and risk further exposure to myself."

If Danny weren't so furious at the medic's cowardliness, he would have felt sorry for the other man. McGarrett's anger was coming off of him in waves, and when he spoke, his voice was like ice. "You've already been exposed, and that child could die if you don't get off your ass and go do your fucking job."

"I did not sign up for unidentified and lethal diseases, man! I like my life, and I intend on sticking around to live it, okay? You can't make me go in there again."

Danny expected Steve to jump in the back of the truck and drag the man out kicking and screaming, but instead he looked at the medic with disgust in his eyes and said, "Where's your kit?"

Apparently, the other man was thrown by the change in conversational direction as well. "My what?"

"Your kit," McGarrett repeated slowly, acid dripping form every word. "Your kit with intubation tubes and that stuff. Where is it?"

The EMT grabbed a red bag that was lying on the floor next to him and threw it in Steve's direction. "There, go nuts."

"Are there masks in here?" Steve asked, bag in hand.

"No," and for a brief second, something almost along the lines of remorse flashed through the EMT's eyes. "I was planning on restocking my rig after I got back from this run, but obviously I never expected this when I got the call. The mask on my face is the last one I had, we had a big influenza scare at a high-risk center, and if I'm even going to try to adhere to protocol, I can't take it off and risk anyone else getting exposed."

"Wait, wait, wait," Danny started, fire to his partner's ice. "So you're going to be too chickenshit to go back in there, but are going to keep the only protection for yourself? I don't think so, hand the mask over." The EMT started to fight back, say something, but his words were lost when Steve just grabbed the bag and then slammed the doors closed in his face. The SEAL turned on his heel quickly and started making his way back towards the house without a word. "Uh, Steve? Do you have a plan here or are we just going to chuck some equipment at her and hope for the best?"

Steve didn't slow down as he answered, didn't even look in Danny's direction. "I was the unofficial medic for my SEAL team, Danny, so yes I have a plan."

"Setting aside for the moment this startling revelation about yourself for a moment, you are not thinking of going in that house without any protection for yourself. I know you're not, because that would be above idiotic, and even you aren't that stupid, Steven."

That finally stopped the taller man for a moment, as he finally stopped to look down at Danny. "What do you expect me to do? Watch her throat close up over a computer screen, knowing that I could do something to stop it? Firstly, we don't even know what we're dealing with here, and it might not even be contagious. Secondly, either way, someone _has_ to go in there and help her and if that piece of shit medic isn't going to, then I am—I'm qualified, and I'm not going to ask anybody else to potentially risk their life instead."

Steve started to move away, but stopped at Danny's hand curling around his arm. "Are you even listening to yourself? _We don't even know what we're dealing with here_ , Steven. You could go in that house and never come out of it alive! You can't expect me to be okay with that."

A sort of lopsided smile showed on McGarrett's face briefly, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm not expecting you to do anything other than let me go help this kid and deal with the consequences later."

It was only a moment of silence between them, but to Danny's racing heart and escalating emotions, it felt a lifetime longer. He couldn't let go of his partner's arm, couldn't willingly let him go into danger, especially one that couldn't be fought with the methods he was so used to. He couldn't just let his best friend sacrifice himself again, not after watching him do it year after year with nothing in return. He couldn't respect his partner's decision this time.

And then, the moment was over and Danny was sure that his eyes expressed everything he couldn't verbally, and he dropped his hand.

Almost immediately, Steve was off, jogging with the EMT's kit in his hand; running up the front steps of the house, past the objections of every officer he passed, and then he slipped into the house seamlessly, leaving like he had never been outside at all.

Danny wasted no time, rushing over to the computer feed that was still up, needing to be as close as he could to knowing what was going on. He arrived just in time to see that Maddie had passed out, McGarrett moving closer to feel for a pulse. After a moment of tense silence, the SEAL nodded, and then started to move the girl to the floor. "She's got a pulse but she's not breathing, so I'm going to intubate."

Danny wasn't the only one watching with wide eyes as Steve moved methodically, selecting a tube and a metal instrument from the bag, tilting the girl's head back on the floor and opening her mouth as he moved to kneel in front of her head. Watching as he carefully positioned the tool to pull her jaw and tongue down, watching as he apparently found what he was looking for and inserted the tube into the girl's throat, watching as he pulled out a blue bag and hooked it up to the tube, watching as he started squeezing the bag at a regular rate, watching as he lay his head down on her chest for a moment and listened for something only he could hear. Watching as he sat up, still squeezing the back, and spoke into the camera. "There's no stethoscope in here, but as far as I can tell, the tube is in the right spot and the breath sounds seem to be good. My guess is she'll wake up in not too long."

Danny nodded, knowing he was close enough to the camera for Steve to see him. "Okay, good," he replied, his voice a bit shaky. Then, summoning an authority he didn't feel at the moment, Danny spoke again more loudly. "We'll take care of everything out here." He directed his attention to the officers milling around him, wanting nothing more than for the audience to leave. "You three, go connect with Lieutenant Kelly and Officer Kalakaua: update them on everything here, and then start working with them to trace everywhere the Ambassador has been recently. We need to figure out exactly where she's been so that we can try to identify the disease, and they're going to need extra hands." He turned towards the other two that were standing around. "You two, go and find me that damn CDC officer, now. I don't care if you need to fly somewhere to pick her up yourselves; I want her here in the next half an hour, got it? And you two—I want you to go coordinate with Tripler so that they know what they've got coming, okay?"

Having assigned everyone in the immediate area something to do, Danny turned back to the digital version of his partner, who was still squeezing the air bag at even intervals. "So all these times that you've been injured and told me you were qualified to tell if you needed to go to the hospital or not, you weren't just trying to be a dick?"

Steve quietly laughed. "Well, I'm sure that being a dick was part of it at times, but it's just because you're so fun to rile up."

"Har har. Want to tell me how you ended up being able to intubate someone? Or is that classified too?"

"You're never going to let Strawberry Fields go, are you?" Steve responded with a small smile. He paused for a moment as if deciding something, and then finally spoke. "One of my first missions out with my SEAL team, we were taking heavy fire and the guy who was our medic ended up getting killed right in the middle of the firefight. Those of us who weren't that badly injured made it back to base, but a few guys died out there because no one else really knew what to do. When I started moving up the ranks, it was something that stayed with me, and I knew that if I was going to be in charge of a team someday, I wanted to be able to act as a backup if the same situation ever happened again. I knew that losing guys was going to be part of the job, but I never wanted to watch one of my men die knowing that there was something else I could have done to save him."

"So what did you do?"

"I started hanging around the medical tent, bugging the shit out of the guys there to teach me things. Whenever I had free time on base or in camps, I would stay and watch, and I tried to pick up what I could. Eventually, this one guy took pity on me and started training me in his off hours—took away what little sleep we could have gotten, but it was worth it. I wouldn't be able to perform any impromptu surgeries or anything, obviously, but in a pinch, I could do things like this. Intubate, I mean. I could throw in a few stitches if necessary, knew how to help with shock, dress a wound properly—things like that. Not too longer after this guy started teaching me, I was out on a mission with just a few other guys, and it was essential personnel only, so no army doctor coming with us. We'd made it in fine, but coming out was FUBAR, and one of my men needed help badly, but we were at least an hour away from any support, so I patched him up best I could. What I had learned saved his life." Steve shrugged, still squeezing the bag. "And even though it's been years, some things you don't forget."

Danny wasn't sure if Steve was referring to the mission, either or both of them, or the simple practice of inserting a tube into someone's throat, but he knew he was never going to get a specific answer about it. Not only because there was something in Steve's eyes begging Danny to let things lie, but also because Maddie started waking up. He watched on the screen as his partner spoke to the girl calmly, explaining everything, continuing to breathe for her through the whole process. He watched on the screen as they both settled in for the long haul, Steve speaking quietly to her to help keep her calm and grounded, Danny was sure.

It was the same thing that he had done for Steve so many times over the years, the quiet comfort, the simple way of letting the other person know that they weren't alone, no matter what. And watching his partner sit in that house, unprotected and exposed, with a disease that had already claimed one life, Danny wondered if he wasn't going to have to take up that quiet vigil once again.

* * *

It felt like days had passed since that morning, Danny reflected, as he stayed seated outside his partner's quarantine room, but in reality it had only been hours.

Not too long after Maddie had woken up, the representative from the CDC had finally arrived, establishing protocol and protections, some that Danny would have never thought necessary. But everyone jumped to do as she said, and in the end, Maddie, Steve, and the cowardly EMT had been securely transferred to Tripler Medical Center, Maddie's mother to a CDC-approved morgue. Maddie was in her own room, now on a ventilator to help her ailing lungs; Steve in a room next door, being poked like a pin cushion to get enough blood for all sorts of tests; the craven EMT next to that, a man who's name Danny neither knew, nor cared to find out.

The CDC representative had already informed Danny that until they knew exactly what they were dealing with, McGarrett and the others would be in isolation for at least two weeks, though that time table could be variable based off of symptoms or lack thereof. She had described the process so calmly, like this was an every day thing for her, but the idea of what could be incubating in his best friend's body right now was enough to made Danny's blood pressure spike.

As the Jersey detective had waited for everyone and everything to get settled, Chin and Kono had found that the Ambassador and her daughter had visited some vary uninhabited parts of a country in Central Africa on their way back to the United States; preliminary guesswork was that it was some variation of a monkey pox, but it would take days to verify anything.

Danny found himself vaguely comforted by the fact that it didn't appear to be a targeted attack of any kind, though he knew that either way, it wouldn't have changed the outcome. Maddie and her mom both still would have been sick, and Steve still would have rushed headfirst into danger without a backwards glance.

He found himself pulled out of his thoughts, though, by his partner's voice through the intercom. "Did you find out how long the incubation time was?"

Danny swung around so that he could see his best friend through the large window, his room nearly identical to the one that Joe White had been in years ago. "According to travel records, Maddie and her mom have been back in Hawaii for three days, and were probably exposed two days before that. So probably five or six days, but really, who knows?"

"Right."

And there, just for a second before McGarrett looked away, Danny could have sworn that he saw something flash through the SEAL's eyes that could almost be described as fear. But even as he saw it, Danny immediately told himself that he was wrong, that there was no way Steve was scared, that it wasn't a possibility since Steve was never scared when it came to his own health. But even as he rejected the notion, Danny's mouth opened almost of its own volition. "Are you afraid?"

Steve's eyes flashed up to meet Danny's quickly, surprise just barely evident in his expression. "Why would you ask that? I made my choice knowingly."

"It's one thing in the heat of the moment to choose to save a life, but when the consequences of that decision are unknown and on an unpredictable timeline? Anyone would be scared."

"I'm not scared," Steve protested, his voice crackling through the microphone.

"It's okay if you are," Danny responded, trying his best to sound understanding. "It's not a weakness to be scared."

At that, Steve immediately frowned. "This has nothing to do with weakness, Danny. I know that I made a choice that you wouldn't have, and I know that this isn't what you would have chosen for me to do, but I did what I did, and it's done now. I've dealt with deadly consequences before, and I'll deal with this now. There's no point in being scared, that's all. There's nothing that I can do to change this."

Danny sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, wishing so very hard that in moments like this, Steve and he could speak the same language. "I just meant that if you are scared, that's understandable because this is a scary thing. You like to have control. Even when you're facing down the barrel of a gun, I look at you and you're still in control because you know you have your training to fall back on to help you get out of the situation. Here," Danny gestured vaguely to the quarantine room Steve was stuck in, "here, there's nothing you can do, nothing to control. You just have to wait and hope your exposure wasn't too much."

"If you're trying to be comforting here, you're not."

"If you're not scared, why do you need comforting?"

This time, Steve didn't answer, spinning around to instead lay on his bed. After a few moments, his eyes closed, he said tiredly, "Why don't you go help Chin and Kono with the case? There's not going to be anything exciting happening here."

"There better not be," Danny muttered quietly, but acquiescing nonetheless by standing up to leave. He collected his things, but before exiting he turned around and placed his hand gently on the glass. "I'm scared, Steve, and I'm not afraid to admit it. I've already had to deal with almost losing you too many times in the course of our partnership. Too many. You're not so easily replaced, you know? You put me through this hell way too often, you hear me? The only reason I didn't want you going in that house is because I didn't want you ending up in here, or worse, me planning your funeral. So yeah, I'm scared of all of this. So please just don't do anything stupid and make me more scared while I'm gone."

* * *

Though the CDC wasn't sure of the exact strain, they were certain enough that the disease was a monkey pox to start dosing Maddie, Steve, the EMT, and anyone else that could have come into contact with Maddie and her mother with antivirals. There wasn't, Danny learned, an actual treatment specifically for monkey pox; instead, the doctors seemed to just treat with anything and everything that could be helpful, including the small pox vaccine. But they weren't sure if any of it would work for Maddie or Steve, and it felt like to Danny that the answer now was just to hope for the best.

Of course, by day five, Steve was antsy, bored, and anxious, though he wouldn't admit that outright. Danny had spent most of his time parked outside Steve's door, Chin and Kono being ordered on a forced vacation by Steve ("I don't need everyone sitting and looking at me through the glass like I'm a fucking zoo animal"), trying to talk with him, keep him updated, but there was a tenseness around the quarantined man that never truly went away.

It was now late afternoon on day six, and Steve was pacing back in forth in his quarantine room, rubbing the back of his neck. "How's Maddie?"

"Same as before," Danny replied, his eyes tracking his best friend's movement. "The rash has spread, but the doctors say she's holding her own. They think once they get the dose of antivirals right, she'll turn the corner."

Steve nodded, and then stopped pacing to lean against his bed, eyes closed. "That's good."

"Yeah," Danny replied, his mind already moving off of Maddie and onto his partner. "Are you okay?" Steve nodded, but without opening his eyes or really focusing on Danny. Immediately, Danny's worry spiked. "Steve, what's wrong?"

Whether it was Danny's tone or the use of the SEAL's name, Danny didn't know, but Steve finally opened his eyes and looked at Danny. "Nothing, just a headache."

"How long?"

"How long what, Danny?"

"How long have you had a headache?"

"I don't know, since last night. Why?"

Danny could feel the rush of anxiety making his body jittery already. "Headaches can be an early symptom."

"A headache can also be a symptom of being cooped up in the same room for a week with no fresh air or exercise. I got headaches all the time when I was in prison."

Danny's mind immediately flashed back to that time all those years ago, Steve stressed and dressed in orange, talking through a glass partition and telephones. The memory left him feeling unsettled, and he was sure that those days had been on Steve's mind as well recently, judging by his comment. But still… "Are you overly tired? Achy anywhere? Are you running a fever?"

"Of course I'm tired, Danny." But even as he said it, Steve's voice had a trace of uncertainty in it. "I'm sure it's just this place."

Danny nodded, but his heart wasn't in it. "I'm going to go find a nurse just in case, alright? Just don't do anything while I'm gone."

"Like what? Die?"

He'd said it in jest, but just the idea made Danny's heart clench. "Yeah, like that, dumbass."

When Danny finally came back with a nurse, and a doctor, and the proper protocols were taken to insure quarantine was maintained, Danny couldn't help but take up the mantle of pacing, doing so in front of Steve's window. When the doctor finally exited the room, Danny all but pounced on him. "How is he?"

The doctor sighed, rubbing his chin tiredly as he watched McGarrett through the window. "He's achy and he's got a low fever. It could be simply something he's picked up, a reaction to all the meds we're giving him, or he could be infected. At this point, we just don't know for sure."

"And when will we know? When he's covered in a rash and can't breathe?" Danny knew he was being rude, but at the moment, he just didn't care.

"Unfortunately, Detective Williams, even if it is the case that Commander McGarrett is infected, there isn't much we can do other than treat the symptoms as they arise. We already have him on strong antivirals, and that's really all we can do. There's no specific vaccine or antidote or treatment for this, and we don't know if everyone's symptoms will be the same. At this point, we simply have to hope for the best."

"Hope for the best, right," Danny muttered, barely noticing as the doctor made some notations in Steve's chart and then left. After a moment, he went right up and stood next to the speaker, his downturned head resting against the glass. "Please just have a cold or something, Steve."

Danny didn't know where his partner was in the hospital room, but wherever he was, his voice sounded far away. "That'd be nice."

"You don't think you have a cold, do you?"

"I'd like to say that I wasn't in there long enough to be exposed, that I couldn't have picked something up from a couple of hours, but I don't know. It is what it is, I guess."

Finally, at that, Danny looked up, his gaze finding McGarrett's quickly. "You're so quick to take on this weight because you think that you're carrying it by yourself, but you're not. I may not be in a hospital bed with you, but I'm in it just the same. If something happens to you, I'm not just going to be okay—you know that, right? So can we please just jack down this _que sera, sera_ bullshit?"

Steve's expression, normally so controlled and calm, loosened for a moment exposing the weariness and fear that he had denied earlier. "I know, Danny, okay? I just… I don't know. You were right, okay? I'm scared. I'm fucking terrified that I spent half my life doing shit for the Navy that you'd probably never believe, running headfirst into battle, thinking I knew how I was going to die, only to be faced with this. This unknown, untreatable thing in my blood that I have no control over. I can't fight this, not like I can a known enemy, someone with a gun. The threats all my life have been external and now my own body is probably going to kill me and if I think about that too much, I'm going to go crazy. So yes, I know that I'm not in this alone, and I'm more sorry that you can ever know for dragging you into all my life and death drama all the time, but I just have to try to calmly accept it or I'm not going to be able to accept it at all."

They were both silent for a moment, and then Danny nodded. "I get it, I do, okay? And I'm sorry for pushing you, I'm just…" He trailed off, knowing that a simple 'thank you' wouldn't even begin to cover the depth of his emotions of having Steve share. "You're my family. I really need you to be okay."

* * *

For a while, it seemed like maybe the universe had listened to Danny, that they had turned a corner when Steve had finally opened up, had been honest with himself and with Danny about what he was feeling. The fever seemed to go down, nothing worse seemed to be coming, and the two of them existed in that bubble, separated at all times by the physical wall between them, even if Steve's had come down. It enforced a difference, but for once, even despite that, Danny felt like they were on the same page.

And then, suddenly they weren't. Suddenly, Steve wasn't breathing. Suddenly, doctors and nurses were going into the room where Danny couldn't. Suddenly, Steve was sedated and hooked up to a ventilator. Suddenly, Danny's world shifted.

"You said to watch out for fevers and headaches, not him turning blue, " Danny said to the doctor as soon as he came out Steve's isolation unit. "Nobody said anything about him fucking not breathing."

The doctor clearly read Danny's anger as what it really was: gut-wrenching, all-consuming worry. "We knew that this virus could have an affect on the pulmonary system, as with young Ms. Maddie, though obviously the Commander's response was more drawn out—it could be a mutation of this specific strain of the virus, or it could be something to do with Commander McGarrett's personal biology. I know that that's not a comforting answer, but it is my inclination to believe that it's the former, seeing as Ms. Maddie had similar—though not as extreme—respiratory issues. And as you know, she's been steadily improving in her condition. My sincerest hope is that with the proper medication and with ventilation to take the stress off of the Commander's lungs, he should make a full recovery in time."

"I feel like there's a _but_ in there, Doc."

"Unfortunately there is. While it is my sincerest hope that meds and rest is all it takes, we just don't know. Since we don't know that much about this specific virus, and the CDC testing has so far not revealed more details, I cannot say for certainty that that will be the case. Obviously, it is typical that being a healthy adult in good physical condition usually helps fight off such diseases, although we have seen exceptions to this, such as with the Spanish Flu of 1918. At this point, only time will tell."

Danny didn't even know how to respond to that, couldn't even begin to vocalize what he was feeling, so he simply stayed silent for a moment and willed himself to ignore the tears of frustration in his eyes. Finally, after feeling like he had wrestled himself into some sort of semblance of control, he spoke quietly. "Can I at least go in and sit with him? He does better when he's not alone." He could do this, he thought, if they could just be in the same space.

But the doctor just shook his head. "I'm sorry, Detective Williams, but the quarantine is still in effect. Unless the CDC says otherwise, he has to stay in isolation for the whole two weeks."

"But he wouldn't be leaving isolation! And you guys go in all the time."

"Quarantine rules being what they are, I can't allow you in."

Danny's voice came out a broken whisper, but he couldn't even be bothered to be embarrassed. "Please. It's—he'll do better if I'm there. Even if he's sedated, he still fights better, and I need him fighting with everything he has."

But the doctor just shook his head. "I'm sorry, truly. But I can't break protocol, especially not with a disease this serious or potentially contagious. I'm sure you can understand."

Danny nodded, not able to argue with the doctor, not when he'd been trying to argue for a similar policy in regards to Maddie back at the crime scene all those days ago. But he wanted to. He wanted to argue, to scream, to break all the rules because it wasn't right. When his partner's life was hanging in the balance, it wasn't right that he couldn't be where Steve needed him.

It had become a ritual of sorts between them. Steve ended up in the hospital way more than he should, way more than Danny could comfortably count, and while his trips didn't always involve rounds of unconsciousness, they did more than Danny could comfortably count. And once their partnership had progressed past the point of being simple work friends, every time Steve was sedated in a hospital bed, Danny was there, holding his hand. In a moment of emotional transparency that Danny was sure was brought on by copious amounts of pain meds, Steve had confessed that sometimes he felt like the feeling of Danny's hand in his was the only thing grounding him, the only thing keeping him from giving up and giving into the darkness. And selfishly, it helped Danny too, letting him have a physical reminder that that day hadn't been the day he'd lost his partner for good.

And now…now Danny was stuck outside, locked out, blocked from helping the man who helped him at every turn. He could neither reassure nor be reassured, and he sat on the other side of that quarantine room, more scared than ever.

* * *

Finally, with one day to go under quarantine, the doctors were able to extubate Steve, once they had found the right way to do it while keeping the SEAL calm enough. And it broke Danny's heart, because Steve's first mumbled word was "Danno", and for once he couldn't be next to his partner to help ease the transition into waking, because all he could do was try to reassure Steve through the speaker that he was there, that everything was okay.

But Danny knew it wasn't enough, knew when Steve—still not quite awake, not quite himself—looked confusedly around the empty room before he fell back asleep with a frown on his face.

So Danny pounced on the doctor the next time he saw the other man after they had removed the intubation tube. "Have you had any update from the CDC?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I spoke to someone this morning, and they've confirmed that Commander McGarrett would have stopped being contagious most likely a week after initial symptoms, meaning—"

"Meaning I could have been in there two days ago," Danny cut in, having to force his frustration down. "Does that mean you'll be moving him to a regular room? And I can go in?"

"I'm afraid not until tomorrow. The CDC is remaining adamant that the Commander finish out the 14-day quarantine just in case. Tomorrow morning, after we've followed _all_ the procedures, we'll go ahead and move him. But with the amount of sedatives in his system still, his periods of wakefulness will be brief. Even if he weren't under quarantine, I doubt he'd even know that you were there."

"But I know," Danny replied, his voice tight. He didn't—couldn't—say anymore, so he just turned and walked back to the seat that he had grown so familiar with lately, and tried to make himself more comfortable.

* * *

Danny squeezed Steve's hand, relishing the fact that he had the opportunity to do so. It felt good to hold his brother's hand, comfort himself that Steve was going to walk away from this one without any new scars or too painful of memories.

The morning had seemed to stretch into the afternoon, waiting for Steve to finally be released from his isolation and moved into a room that Danny could actually come into. The doctor had been right-Steve had't seemed to wake up too much throughout the night or into the next morning, which both helped and hurt. As much as Danny was grateful Steve was still out enough to not miss Danny's presence, he also wanted Steve to be awake and alert, present and healed. But finally, Steve had been cleared by all involved, and had been moved into a bright run with a view of the ocean.

Danny was absentmindedly trying to keep tally of the pertinent details of his life right now (number of days in the hospital: 15; location of Grace and Charlie: out of town visiting Rachel's parents; location of the cousins: on the Big Island for a family event as ordered), when all of a sudden he felt a returning pressure on his hand.

Danny looked down to see his partner awake, seemingly more conscious and coherent than he had been the last few times he had come close to wakefulness. "Hey there, Sleeping Beauty. How're you feeling?"

"Mmm, dry," Steve rasped out, rubbing his hand along his throat.

"That would be," Danny replied, already up and moving to get some ice chips that the nurses had been leaving for moments such as these, "you had a tube in your throat for a couple of days and were on 100% oxygen. They both tend to have a de-humidifying effect."

Steve nodded, eyes traveling around the room as he accepted the ice from Danny. "I take it they deemed me safe to be in public?" Then, almost immediately, another question tumbled off of Steve's tongue, this one with much more urgency. "How's Maddie? Is she okay? And the medic?"

Danny nodded. "She's fine, Steven, calm down. Your heroics were indeed worth it, as Maddie walked out of quarantine yesterday completely of her own power, fully healed, with her aunt. She's going to hopefully live a long and healthy life, thanks to you. And yes, the jerk who wouldn't help was totally healthy-he never even got sick."

Steve nodded, calm instantly returning to his face. "That's good," he murmured, completely ignoring the praise. He was silent for a moment, and then added, almost shyly, "Thanks for coming back, Danny. It's nice to have you here."

Instantly, Danny's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Back? What do you mean? I've been here the whole time."

Steve swept quickly between Aneurysm Face and just plain confusion. "I woke up and you weren't there, the first time." There was a beat, as Danny tried to figure out what to say and Steve didn't say anything, and then the latter suddenly breathed out a quiet laugh and shook his head. "I was wondering where'd you gone the whole time, and I'm now realizing that I was probably still under quarantine when that happened, wasn't I?"

Danny nodded, trying not the let the instant guilt that he had felt at Steve's statement show on his face. He hated that Steve had even remembered that he wasn't there, had noticed enough to even comment on it now. It killed him that his partner had ever thought that he'd been alone through any of this, that Danny would have left. So, coughing a little to cover the lump in his throat, Danny tried to push those feelings aside so as to not burden Steve with anything else. "Yeah, they wouldn't let me in at all, and believe me I tried."

"That makes a lot more sense," Steve replied, then with another embarrassed shake of the head, he added quickly, "Not that you had to have been there, of course."

"Where else would I have been?" Danny asked, guilt slipping aside to make room for genuine bewilderment.

"I'm just saying, you didn't have to stay. But that being said, I've definitely gotten used to not waking up in one of these rooms by myself anymore. Having family is nice."

Danny sat on the edge of Steve's hospital bed and laid a hand on his leg. "You're in the hospital, I'm here too, and vice versa. It's just how we are." He squeezed lightly, and then let his tone turn teasing. "Which, let me tell you, I could really use to cut back on the number of days we spend here. And since I'm the one that is usually smart enough to avoid on the job injuries, it's usually your fault we're here, so cut it out, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Steve murmured sarcastically, with a dismissive wave of the hand. "I'll make it up to you, I promise." His tone was light, but his eyes were serious as he looked at Danny, and it was clear he meant what he was saying.

Danny was almost flippant back, but then held back at the last moment. "What's there to make up for, huh? I may bitch about it, but I knew what I was signing on for all those years ago. This is what family does—what brothers do."

They were both silent for a second, Steve composing himself and Danny pretending not to see the emotion on his partner's face. Finally, Danny spoke again; this time is tone the slightest bit snarky. "So I know I call you Super SEAL, but seriously, secret medical training? Any other secret skills I should know about?"

Steve grinned, a truly bright smile that Danny felt like were all too rare, one that banished the paleness of being hospitalized from his face. "Bet you thought after all this time that I couldn't surprise you still, didn't you?"

"Steven, I'd tell you all the ways you in your Neanderthal glory surprise me, but I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings."

"Careful, another one of my secret skills is mind reading, so I already know you were about to be a dick."

"You're hilarious."

"Another one of my secret skills."

* * *

 **And there we have it! Sometimes, I feel bad because I tend to use Chin and Kono's characters as more filler and really love the stories with just the two boys together, but oh well! ;) Steve and Danny just make for great stories.**

 **Speaking of which, the next one should be up faster! Family obligations caught up to me the last few weeks, but I should have a clearer schedule to get the next one out soon!**

 **All reviews are greatly appreciated and go to a good home.**

 **Charlotte**


	5. I Bet My Life

**Howdy! Happy Labor Day Weekend to all my US readers!**

 **First off, a huge thanks to all the reviewers for the last chapter, and thank you especially to all the Guest reviewers out there! I always hate that I can't reply to your reviews, but I hope you all know how much I appreciate the feedback and comments. Oh! And to the guest reviewer who requested more hurt!Danny stories-this one skirts around the edges of that, but don't worry, I plan on trying to do at least one real Danny-whump story.**

 **And now, PLEASE READ THIS.**

 ** _I AM SERIOUS._ _READ THIS AUTHOR'S NOTE_ : **

**Read this story the whole way through. I promise you, PLEASE READ IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH before making any judgments. If this story needed appropriate warnings I would give them, so trust me.**

 **And now, onwards.**

* * *

" _ **Now remember when I told you tat's the last you'll see of me,**_

 _ **Remember when I broke you down to tears.**_

 _ **I know I took the path that you would never want for me,**_

 _ **I gave you hell through all the years"**_

They'd had a disagreement.

That's what started it, Danny thought. The huge, end all, blow up of a blow out fight that they were currently engaged in had started with a disagreement over how to handle their latest case and their latest dangerous suspect.

For once, Steve was the one that was arguing to follow the rules, call in SWAT, have plenty of men outside for the takedown, have as large of presence as possible. Danny was the one arguing against it, against the massive show, arguing for a smaller, subtler, softer. They couldn't agree, Danny couldn't stop pushing Steve's buttons, and then things got heated. And here they were now, sitting in the Camaro outside the Palace, yelling.

It was ridiculous, Danny knew. They weren't even fighting about what they had originally disagreed on now, and Danny could see every person who walked into the Palace give them sidelong glances, as their voices grew louder and louder. It was utterly embarrassing and so insane, and one woman's face had been so scandalized, that, finally, Danny broke.

He broke with a laugh, stopping Steve short with raised eyebrows. "Did you just laugh?"

"That woman," Danny said, chuckling a little more, "Did you see that woman?"

"What woman?" Steve still sounded more than a little pissed, though slightly more confused than before.

"I'm pretty sure that woman just crossed herself after hearing us," Danny replied, another giggle escaping his mouth. "I know we've been loud but I didn't think we were loud enough to seriously scare another human being from twenty feet away." This time, Steve laughed a little bit with his partner, and Danny could see a little bit of the tension drain from the other man's shoulders. "I love you, you know that right? I love you, but god, you're frustrating sometimes. Did they teach you to be an obnoxious asshole in the Navy, or was that just naturally your personality?" The words held no heat in them, though, and Danny was happy to see the rest of the strain leave his partner's body as their argument completely ran out of steam.

"At least I can blame it on the Navy, but there's nothing to blame for you."

"Har har," Danny responded quickly, before turning more serious. "Agree to disagree?"

"At least until you agree that I'm right because I'm the boss," responded Steve with a smile. Then, "Well, now that you've made me famished from this mental workout, let's grab dinner, yeah?"

Danny nodded, and they made their way back to the McGarrett household peacefully. It had been a while since they had had the time to spend the evening together, work and childcare cutting their extracurricular bonding time to a meal here or there, and Danny was grateful just to be able to sit by the ocean with a beer and his best friend.

Their luck held, and there were no interruptions, leaving them free to catch up on all they needed to, somehow not having run out of things to say to each other even after spending all day at work together. It was, Danny mused, one of the nicer things of having your brother be your coworker. Danny commented such to Steve, earning back a snarky, "I'll remind you of that next time you disagree with me." It was a good enough evening, with a day off ahead of them tomorrow that Danny ended up drinking more than he had intended, so in the wee hours of the morning, he settled comfortably onto Steve's couch, a blanket lightly wrapped around him.

He woke up a few hours later, the sun just starting to rise, breathing heavily, anxious. He couldn't figure out what had woken him at first, why he felt so shaken, until he realized the blanket was tightly coiled around him, pressing too tightly and making him feel trapped. In the same moment that he was telling himself it was absurd to feel claustrophobic from a blanket, he was moving quickly to untangle his legs from their bind.

Just as he sat back in relief at getting himself free, Danny heard the quiet murmurings of Steve's voice upstairs. "What the fuck? It's like five am, Steve," Danny mumbled as the floorboards creaked above him with Steve's footsteps. With a glare above him, Danny reached for his phone, wanting to see exactly what time it was so he could give Steve shit for it later. As he picked it up, the bright light tore into his dilated eyes, and he had to blink a few times to let his vision clear and see the screen.

When he could finally see, he immediately wished that he had remained blind for a moment longer. Had remained un-alerted to the multiple alerts crowding his screen.

War.

An attack on an American city by a foreign power. An unknown number of dead, wounded, or missing. Flashbacks and comparisons to a decade and a half before. A promise for justice from the government, with appropriate declarations made.

Suddenly, Steve's phone call upstairs took on a whole new meaning, and Danny felt like he was going to be sick.

He sat upright on the sofa, phone and blanket forgotten as he stared blankly out the back windows, his brain not being fully able to comprehend the momentous changes that were coming. After a while, it could have been minutes, hours, or days, Steve came downstairs, face already carefully constructed to be calm.

When he saw Danny awake, McGarrett immediately came and sat across from the blonde. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Danny didn't look at him, didn't want to see the perversely calm face of the soldier next to him. "You didn't, not exactly. Checking my phone certainly woke me up more." They were both silent for a moment, the air around them heavy with the weight of the world, and then finally Danny looked at his best friend. "You're going, aren't you? That's what the phone call was, right? To sign back up for whatever the hell we've been dropped in."

Steve nodded, and for an instant, there was a flash of emotion in the SEAL's eyes, both acceptance and fear. "I can do a lot for the effort, Danny, with my skills and background."

"You can do a lot here, too," Danny retorted quietly, desperately, willing to say or do anything to keep his partner here. It was too much to even imagine Steve going where he was unable to follow.

"It's not the same. And I don't have a choice, not really. This is bigger than what I want, Danny. It's about what's needed and what can be done."

His tone was placating, but Danny wasn't placated. "You can do the selfish thing for once," his voice so full of emotion that it was almost a whisper. "This won't be a quick mission or reserve training—you'll be gone, but we'll need you here."

The cool and collected veneer was firmly in place this time, no cracks in the perfect armor. "It won't be quick, no, but it's for the greater good."

"Bullshit," Danny responded morose, belligerent, brokenhearted. "What if it kills you? Who's going to fight crime with me from the nursing home?"

"Then I'm sure you'd find someone else to annoy. But try not to worry, I'm going to do my best to come home."

Danny nodded, but what his body wanted to do instead was pull his partner, his best friend, into a hug and never let go. "I'm never going to be okay with this."

"I know. I don't expect you to be, I just expect you to be there to send me off."

And Danny was. Although he wasn't waving at a departing aircraft carrier, a few weeks later he still sent his partner off into the unknown, waving as long as he could see the SEAL walking down the jet way to the plane that would take him back to DC. He was in his blue fatigues, already technically back on active duty, and ready to report.

Danny hated it. He wasn't ashamed to admit that he'd been crying when Steve walked away for what could be the last time, wasn't going to lie about the fact that his heart felt like it was in a vice, squeezing so hard that there was nothing but fear and pain left inside. The world was in bad shape at the moment, but Danny couldn't find it in his heart to care about of that when he was having to prepare for this separation that Steve had always promised wouldn't come. So at that moment, watching Steve's camo-wearing figure disappear around the bend at last, Danny didn't care about the war, the bleakness of the world, the implications for the future; instead, he wallowed in the feeling of being so very alone.

Much as he tried, that feeling of isolation didn't leave him. Not in the beginning, when Steve called home frequently, his time on base in the States being extended for various reasons. Not later, when Steve got shipped out to halfway around the world and the calls became infrequent, an all too rare and special gift.

Not when year one rounded into year two and even though Five-0 had found its way without its leader, Danny still couldn't get comfortable. Not when year two became year three when Steve signed on for another tour, the little bit of time he'd had on leave not being nearly enough.

Not when Danny looked up one day from helping Grace with her college applications and realized that he'd only seen the man who had become a brother to him a few times in the past four years.

And he knew that that sense of isolation and loneliness that had seemed to descend on him all those years ago at the airport would never leave when two immaculately dressed men showed up at his house early one morning.

Steve had made Danny his next of kin before shipping out, determining that it was both less stressful for Mary and also simpler as Danny was also named as the executor of Steve's will. It wasn't a job Danny wanted, hadn't wanted to face the fact that this new war had suddenly made this all possible, all necessary. And deep down, he hadn't wanted to be the first one to get the bad news, should that instance ever arrive.

And now, now it looked that it had arrived. Danny had vomited into the bushes on the side of his house as soon as he had opened the door and seen who was there. He could have ignored the implications of why there were two men clearly from the Navy on his doorstep except for the fact that one of them was clearly a chaplain.

He spoke to them, but couldn't hear what they were saying once they said the words 'killed in action.' He could see their lips moving, but it was like a fog had settled over his senses and he'd blocked everything out. It left him in a daze that he didn't come out of until weeks later, after the funeral, after everyone had left, after he was left alone in an empty house and forever without the other person in the world who had seemed to share a part of his soul.

And, finally, Danny broke.

He cried ugly tears, heaved painful sobs that felt like they could rip his body apart. He stayed in his house, on the floor, barely moving from grief for two days until his daughter came to find him, tearstains on her cheeks

He finally started pulling himself out of his quagmire of sorrow for the sake of his kids, trying to find normalcy in a world that felt so hellish it couldn't be real. He went back to work, but couldn't bear the glass walls that constantly let him see who wasn't and would never be there again, and he found himself transferring back to HPD after a time. He worked cases, got assigned a new partner, but never let himself get so close the way he once had.

He eventually started dating again, having broken up with Melissa not too long after the funeral. He couldn't stand how she reminded him of happier times, couldn't stand himself for blaming her for any of it. He met a woman in a support group that was a good person, good for him, and didn't make him think of his dead best friend every time he saw her face. They'd both lost brothers to this war and she understood what it was like to not be able to move on, despite everyone else seeming to find a way. They grew older, together, and she doted on Grace and Charlie as though they were her own. It took Danny years to want to make their relationship legal, not able to stomach the idea of getting married and not having his best man there.

Steve had left a SEAL-shaped hole in Danny's life that he really wasn't ever able to fully fill. It'd been like this after Matt, but Steve had gotten him through that, through the pain and loss. But now, Danny had no brothers left and there was a hollowness inside his heart now that he didn't know how to fix.

He grew older still, enjoying in his children's lives, in their children's lives, and he wouldn't say that it was unfulfilling but there had always been a piece missing. He hadn't pictured his life turning out this way, he thought as he noticed one day that the last of the blonde had fade from his hair. He'd found peace, after a while, but he'd imagined his children being cousins to the children McGarrett eventually would have had, of large family gatherings with all of them there, of their families growing old together, of staying together through the end. He was grateful for everyone in his life now, but there were still days that it ached that Steve had missed out on all of this.

It was one of those days where Danny could feel the echoes of his best friend all around him as he lay in his hospital bed, could almost hear the joke Steve would have made if he'd been there to hear Danny's liver was failing. He was an old man, now, and wouldn't have taken a transplant even given the opportunity, but he knew that Steve would have made some smartass comment that would have caused a round of bickering if he had been in his rightful place by Danny's side. And he felt Steve's absence so profoundly that it was like a physical pain, and for one traitorous moment, Danny was almost glad that he was dying so that he could see Steve again.

Finally, Danny closed his eyes to the family around him, drawing his last breaths and thinking about the family he would see on the other side with a smile, as he let the darkness take him.

* * *

"Danny, can you hear me? Just squeeze my hand, okay? Please, just wake up."

There was a familiar, worried voice next to his ear, but that didn't make sense, because he was dying, they all knew he was dying, he was old so they should just let him go…

"Come on, Danno, I know you're just resting your eyes to annoy me."

Suddenly, the voice and the nickname clicked something inside Danny and he struggled to open his eyes, needing to see, needing to verify for himself. Finally, _finally_ , after what felt like a momentous struggle, Danny peeled his eyes open, and looked up to see Steve's tired face looking down at him.

Steve. Young, healthy, _here_ Steve.

"Steve?" He hadn't realized how dry his voice was until he tried to speak, and his partner's name came out more like a croak. He gratefully took the ice chip Steve offered into his mouth and sucked on it for a few seconds, trying to use the time to sort out his confusion. "You're here. How?"

Though Danny's mind was still trying to process what was happening when he vividly remembered another reality, Steve answered the question he'd assumed to be implied. "We were trying to find Frank Stewart, remember? We'd tracked him to a hotel down by the beach, and we'd argued about how to handle him-in the car, right?. I finally agreed that your approach would best because of his propensity for surprise bombs when threatened, and so we went in small. You and I split up when we got there. Do you remember any of that?" Danny's wide, confused gaze must have clearly indicated that he did not, because Steve continued. "I heard something through the comms, but when I found you, you'd already taken a bad hit to the head. We got him, eventually, but I couldn't get you to wake up, even after everything."

"Everything?" Danny asked, and then realized for the first time that Steve was sitting in a wheelchair, an IV hooked up to his arm, looking pale and tired. "You're hurt."

"Says the man with a skull fracture."

"Skull fracture?" Danny's attention was immediately drawn away to what he was noticing was a truly awful headache. He didn't quite understand what was going on yet, how and why Heaven, his next life, the final hallucinations of a dying brain, whatever it was, seemed to be his best friend and he injured, in a hospital.

"Yeah," Steve confirmed, his mouth turning down into a frown as he clearly remembered details Danny could still only grasp at. "Stewart hit you really hard with a pipe, and it cracked your skull, which led to some really bad intracranial pressure. They've been watching you, trying to evaluate if you'd need surgery or not, but the pressure went down earlier this morning and you started to wake up. By all accounts, you're mostly out of the woods by this point. I'm sure your head still feels awful, though."

"It does," Danny replied, dazed at everything. "But Steve, how are you here? You died, I got the letter, you went to war and you died…" Danny trailed off, realizing at the same time that he was both rambling and crying. "You died and I got old without you. I-I was dying as an old man and now I'm here, and I don't get it. You can't be real." He forced a sob down his throat, not able to stop the emotion.

Steve immediately moved stiffly out of the wheelchair, standing up and stepping forward to grab Danny's hand in his. His eyes tightening in pain at the movement, his brown furrowing in confusion, but he didn't sit back down. "Danno, you've been unconscious for two days, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm real, this is real." He squeezed Danny's hand tightly, almost painfully so as if he could try to squeeze understanding into his partner by force. "Your brain got more than a bit scrambled from the fracture and concussion, and they've had you on some heavy drugs to keep you sedated. So whatever you thought happened was just a dream. Or some sort of hallucination, but it wasn't real."

Danny's head hurt and it felt like he couldn't handle the emotional whiplash paired with so much confusion. "But they came to the house, they told me you had died."

"I didn't die, I'm right here." Steve leaned a bit more forward and pressed Danny's fingers into the pulse at his wrist. "Feel that? You can't get more alive than a heartbeat."

"Promise?" He wanted so desperately to believe but that other life had felt so real, so awfully real.

"I promise." He moved to sit back down in the wheelchair, pausing when he seemed to sense the brief flash of anxiety Danny felt when he'd moved away. "I'm just sitting back down, okay? I'm not going anywhere."

Danny nodded, unwanted emotion seeming to rise within him again. He forced himself to focus, to try to clear his head and concentrate on what was apparently real. After a moment, Danny lashed onto something that escaped his attention until now, and he felt a rush of irritated concern that seemed to carry over into his tone. "What happened to you?"

Steve signed, clearly sensing that he wasn't going to be able to avoid the question. "Stewart decided to use you as a bit of bait for me, thought he could take out the both of us and make his escape. It was a pot shot, but it still did a bit more damage than I originally thought, hence the fact that I am still officially a patient, and not sitting by your bedside as a free man."

"What kind of damage?"

"Just a bit of bleeding."

"That's a bit vague," Danny responded, suddenly feeling much more grounded in this reality as he latched onto a familiar fight. "If you're still here after two days, I'm guessing it was more than just bit of bleeding."

"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with," Steve retorted, clearly not willing to say anything more.

But Danny needed him to say more, needed to hear the exact words describing the hurt and then the healing, needed to hear exactly how his best friend had been fixed so that he knew that this whole fucking lifetime that he remembered living alone wasn't real. So he continued to press, continue to fight, instinctively knowing that the accustomed banter would ground him. "It really fucking is."

The SEAL's eyes narrowed for a moment, but it was such a familiar expression that Danny couldn't be bothered to be annoyed in response, not when some part of him was still saying that he hadn't seen that look for decades. Danny was still relishing this when Steve finally responded. "Considering all the trauma you've endured the past few days, I don't think recounting my time on an operating table is going to help any. So let's just go with I'm fine now, I'm alive, and this is real, okay?" By the end of his comment, McGarrett's voice had returned to the calming and soothing tone that he had started the conversation with. "Chin and Kono should be here any minute, so then we can talk with the doctor, and then we can fill you in on the rest. Sound good?" Then, after a moment, concernedly, "Danny? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

Danny's gaze zeroed in on the face of his partner, his concern poorly concealed. "Yeah, sorry, I just realized something. About my dream, hallucination, whatever."

Steve's face smoothed back out as soon as Danny responded, and he said cautiously, "Yeah, you want to tell me about it?" Then, as if sensing they were both in need of a little physical contact, Steve moved forward so that he could clasp Danny's hand in his own.

The contact helped, but for a moment, Danny was terrified of retelling the whole thing, terrified of reliving those emotions. But then he pushed forward, using Steve's hand as an anchor. "There was a war, and you went to fight it. Only, you didn't come back. You were killed on a mission and I lived my whole life without you. I met someone and got married, had children and a whole family, but there was always this missing piece and I grew old without my best friend. It was hell, and it felt _so_ real. But while we've been talking, I've been thinking about it and everything that I remember, and I started to realize that there were weeks, months, years, where I just didn't recall anything about that life. Like it was just vague nothingness, which logic says if I had died and this was some sort of heaven, not only would I definitely not be stuck in a hospital bed, but also surely I could remember my wife's name.

"But just now, with part of me wanting to swear up and down those years were real, I realized Chin and Kono weren't there. Which means it couldn't have been real, because even if I'd changed jobs, grown apart for a while, they'd still have been around." He stopped speaking suddenly as he was overtaken by a huge yawn. He always hated this feeling, the sudden and inescapable fatigue that followed an injury. But he still couldn't stop himself from adding, "I missed you," quietly.

Steve squeezed Danny's hand tightly for a moment, the forcefulness of his grip clearly conveying his emotions. It told Danny that Steve had missed him too, even if it had only been two days. Two tense days of worrying and silence. After a beat, Steve released the pressure, but maintained a loose hold on Danny's hand. "You should rest for a while, while I get the doctor."

Danny nodded, but as soon as he had given his acquiescence, doubt started to creep into the back of his mind. That he'd go to sleep and wake up back in the reality where Steve was dead. That he'd wake up to a terrible world of loss. That doubt, that fear, made all his pride wash away, and he asked softly. "You'll still be here when I wake up? Still alive?"

"You can bet on it." Steve replied with a gentle smile. "I know what it's like to wake up from living a whole other life, and you can't tell fact from fiction. But this, right here, right now—it's not some wild dream. Yes, I'm going to walk out those doors, but I promise I'll walk back in them. Well, wheel, I suppose. But the fact remains: I'll be here. And I'll keep reminding you until you're healed and you are so sick of me and all the stupid things that I do that you'll wish you _were_ in a different reality."

The strength, the sincerity, the certainty in Steve's words help calm Danny's lingering fears, letting him relax enough that sleep started to pull him back under. "Not gonna happen…" he slurred slightly, for once not caring that he was being overly nice to the man to whom his standard setting was snarky.

Steve said something in response, but Danny's eyes had already slid closed, a relaxed smile on his face.

* * *

 **Bet all of y'all thought I was going to spring a deathfic on you, but I told you to trust me! I learned my lesson the first time around ;)**

 **Anyway, I hope you liked it and I would love any and all feedback! No promises on when the next one will be up (since I seem to be good at breaking them), but hopefully soon-ish!**

 **Charlotte**


	6. Polaroid

**Well holy shit, that took so much longer than I ever thought possible.**

 **I started working full time again and oooh boy, full time really meant _literally all of my waking hours._ I've been really exhausted and overwhelmed, and haven't been able to get myself in the mood to write, even when I found a few minutes to. BUT things have slowed down a bit and I'm trying to be better about forcing myself to write, at least for a few minutes a day.**

 **I also feel like I really lost the spirit of this story, a bit. I had had an original plan for where I wanted to take it, but after not writing for a couple of months straight, I couldn't remember what that plan was anymore, and figured I'd better wrap it up before three years had passed. With all that said and done, I'm not happy with how this one turned out, but wanted to get it done and posted so I could move onto the next one!**

 **Hopefully y'all will like this more than me, but I appreciate any and all feedback! Also, while I make no promises on when the next chapter will be up, I do hope it'll be within a couple of weeks!**

 **And with that, here we go again!**

 **4/29 Note: Updated chapter, because I realized the ending was trash. Note kids: Do not write while half asleep.**

* * *

" **All my life I've been living in the fast lane,**

 **Can't slow down**

 **I'm a rollin' freight train.**

 **One more time**

 **Gotta start all over.**

 **Can't slow down**

 **I'm a lone red rover."**

"Fuck."

Steve's curse rang loudly through the McGarrett household, its tone equal parts angry and despondent. It was loud enough, full of enough emotion that Danny looked up from his place in the kitchen, knife paused above the fruit he'd been cutting.

They were having a team barbeque at Steve's house, a long overdue bonding session that they'd finally found a night for. Danny had come over to Steve's early, arguing that Steve needed extra help preparing everything, but also wanting some extra quality time with the man that he called brother.

They'd been getting everything pulled together when Steve's doorbell had rung. Danny had heard the quiet mumblings of conversation, though it seemed lighthearted and pleasant, nothing at all to match the tone of Steve's voice now.

When tense silence continued to radiate from the front hallway, Danny set down his knife, wiped his hands off, and moved to the front room. He immediately grew more concerned as he took in Steve's posture, which was as stiff and tight as Danny had ever seen. He was clenching a letter in his hand, though the lack of expression on the SEAL's face was at odds with the stress in the rest of his body.

McGarrett hadn't reacted when Danny had entered the room, so Danny took another step forward and then spoke in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "Steve? Is everything okay?"

At Danny's voice, Steve seemed to reign in whatever emotions he was feeling, turning to face Danny like everything was perfectly normal. But when he spoke, the forced calm couldn't completely cover the tightness underneath. "Everything is fine, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

"I'm just going to go ahead and say bullshit now, Steven. You cursing loudly is sort of the opposite of fine."

Steve didn't give up any ground. "It's nothing. Let's go finish the food before everyone gets here." He carefully folded the letter back into thirds and then shoved the paper in his back pocket as he started to move around the Jersey detective and back into the kitchen.

But Danny wasn't about to give up without a fight. "It's clearly _not_ nothing. You're going to tell me eventually, so you might as well just save us both the trouble and tell me now."

Steve's knuckles whitened around the handle of the knife that he had picked up from where Danny had set it. "I really don't want to talk about this right now, okay? It's not a big deal, and I would really just like to be able to focus on making dinner and have a relaxing evening."

"How are we going to have a relaxing evening when you're suddenly wound tighter than a drum?"

"Danny—"

"I'm serious, Steve. Everyone is going to come over and know that there's something wrong, so if you want to just process it now and talk it out—"

"I said to drop it," Steve cut in, tone as sharp as the knife in his hand. "I'm not talking about this right now, so just stop. Either go help me or go wait outside, but I'm not doing this now."

Danny held his hands up in silent surrender, moving quietly to take on a new task in the kitchen, worry quickly overtaking his annoyance. He'd been concerned at the beginning, but Steve's stubborn insistence that nothing was amiss was enough to push that aside and let irritation blossom in its place. But now…Steve never spoke to him like that, not even in their worst arguments. Steve would yell, would swear, would be visibly annoyed with Danny, sure. But the coldness, the simmering anger that had been in his partner's voice right now was on a whole other level of their normal emotional playing field, and it had every part of Danny afire with the notion that something was seriously wrong with his best friend.

They stayed silent, each finishing their task in the kitchen, until the rest of the team arrived. It was a silence that ate away at Danny, heavy with the unspoken tension. He kept opening his mouth to say something, but then would close it again as the memory of Steve's sharp tone came creeping back in.

Even after the cousins and Lou arrived, Danny didn't feel like it got any better. Steve was a great actor and was able to fool the others into thinking nothing was wrong, meaning that every time Danny hovered over Steve or gave his partner a look, Danny was the one that ended up getting the side glances from the rest of the team, clearly wondering what was wrong with _him_. But even if he'd fooled everyone else, Danny could see the strain that lay draped around his best friend's shoulders all night.

Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore. Things had wound down to a point where Lou had begged off to go home to his family, and the original four members of the team were sitting around the lanai, drinking and reminiscing. Steve was doing on obnoxiously amazing job of keeping up his charade around Chin and Kono, but Danny could see the rigidness of Steve's spine, unbending in its forced slouch.

It was annoying Danny so much, this ignoring the issue, this inability to further interrogate and discuss, that finally he stood up and abruptly excused himself to go to the bathroom. He ignored the glances he got at his sudden departure, and made his way inside. He had intended to just use the moment alone to take a few deep, cleansing breaths to force himself to relax, but as he walked into the family room, he saw a slightly crumpled envelope sitting on the table next to the door.

He knew that it had to be whatever had been delivered earlier, knew whatever clues he could glean from the address on the front might be the answer to the question that had been plaguing him all night. He also knew that looking at it would be a huge breach of trust, and that he definitely shouldn't touch it.

After a moment's hesitation, even knowing that it wasn't his to interfere with, Danny leaned forward and flipped over the envelope. At the moment that he saw what was printed on the front, Danny's heart clenched, Steve's behavior coming a little more into focus.

The letter was postmarked from the United States Navy, and not from an address on the nearest base. Everything about it, from the crisply typed font to the perfectly placed flagged stamp, read official business, not just any sort of standard communication.

While now more than ever Danny wanted to be able to read the letter that he knew was still tucked in Steve's back pocket, he also had a sudden horrible sinking feeling. Danny had his guesses as to the content of the letter, vague suspicions that he didn't want to put name to, but whatever the specifics of the correspondence were, it had sunk Steve into an emotional state that Danny hadn't seen for years.

He was about to turn around and head back outside, when he heard the weight of footsteps behind him, though he didn't have to turn around to know who it was. He said a quick word of thanks that he didn't have the envelope in his hand when he turned around to face Steve.

Steve, who's cover had apparently dropped the moment he walked in the door, and who's face was hard and inscrutable. "Are we going to talk about whatever is happening finally?" Danny asked after a moment's hesitation.

"I told you, I don't—"

"I know you don't want to, but frankly, I don't fucking care. You're all chatty and happy around Chin and Kono, but I can still see how upset you are and I'm not letting you walk around with that inside of you anymore. I thought we'd moved past the secrets and the silences in our friendship by now."

For just a moment, a breath, Steve's face shifted and Danny saw a fleeting glimpse of intense pain in his partner's eyes. And then it was if it had never happened, and his face was blank once more. "You don't get it, Danny," Steve finally responded, his voice strained and low. "If I start talking to you about this now, there's a strong possibility that I'm going to lose my shit, and I can't…Chin and Kono are here."

And Danny knew whatever it was, whatever the information Steve had received was, it had Steve admitting to an emotional weakness he rarely ever did. And that simultaneously scared him and made him want to agree to whatever Steve wanted in the moment, so he nodded. "When they leave, you're telling me the truth, okay?"

Steve seemed like he wanted to refuse at first, wanted to fight Danny's directive, but instead finally nodded in return, his face losing the hard set that it'd had just moments before. "Fine."

"Okay, well then let's go back at there, hmm?" Without waiting for Steve to respond, Danny walked back outside, where he forced himself to be as normal as he could be for the next hour. He was able to relax more than he had before, knowing that he was going to get the truth, going to be able to help his best friend like he so desperately wanted and the other man needed. But for once, the time with Chin and Kono couldn't pass fast enough, and he almost said a small prayer of thanks when they finally walked out the front door.

As soon as the door swung closed, a silence settled over the two of them, and Danny wasn't sure how to proceed for a moment. Steve solved that for the both of them, though, as he took the now crumpled letter from his back pocket and handed it to Danny silently, moving slowly to the carefully worn leather sofa. Danny unfolded the letter slowly, keeping one eye on his partner as he slowly sat down.

Finally he couldn't stall any longer, seemingly as paradoxical as that was to his earlier rush, and he looked down at the words before him. He mostly skimmed the beginning but stopped at the words _medical discharge_. At that, his eyes shot up to meet McGarrett, who had clearly been watching him as he read. "The Navy is discharging you? Why? Can they even do that as a reserve?"

"It's different than being discharged from active service, but it comes down to the same thing," Steve replied dully, "and what that comes down to is that the Navy doesn't want me anymore."

"Steve, that's not—"

"It is, Danny. I'm not fit for service anymore in their eyes, even in the reserves."

"Is this because of the liver? Or the radiation poisoning?" His voice cracked slightly on the last word, still not coming to terms with the idea of his partner very blood being toxic to him. "How did they find out?"

"Not through me," Steve murmured quietly. "At least, not at first. Somehow they heard a rumor or a whisper about my trips to the hospital, or maybe someone at Tripler said something they shouldn't have to the wrong person. And then they asked me to come in for an interview, where I argued the fact that I was perfectly healthy. I didn't outright lie, didn't completely deny anything, and I made myself clear that anything that may or may not be in my medical history didn't impede me from effectively being a reserve officer, or even active duty if that ever happened. My CO all but assured me that I'd be fine, so you can imagine my surprise when this came today."

Danny finally moved from the doorway and made his way to the coffee table, sitting on it and placing his hand on Steve's knee. "I'm so sorry, Steven." He knew there wasn't anything he could say to make this hurt go away, not when the Navy had been the most constant thing his partner had ever known in his entire life. It'd been an institution, a group of people that had his back when no one else did and to have that same thing be ripped away from him…Danny knew that this must be hitting his partner as hard as the lose of his parents. "You have a family now, though, you know that. You know that you've got something else in your life now, right?"

Steve snorted, but didn't move his knee out from under Danny's hand, didn' t push away the comfort, and so the blonde counted it as a victory nonetheless. "I'm not dumb, Danny, I know that. But that's not really my point, you know?"

"I know." Danny tilted his head forward, wishing he could find a better way of vocalizing his feelings. "I know it's beyond shitty. All I'm saying is that it's not like it happened before Five-0, okay? You're not alone and you've got something else in your life now."

The SEAL squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and took a deep breath, clearly trying to ward off the emotional breakdown he had foreseen earlier. "It's not just that, Danny," he said, a dark tone coloring his words. "I always thought I'd get to go out on my terms, you know? Everything I am comes from that, and you take that away and what am I?"

"Hey," Danny replied sharply, forcing his best friend to look at him. "I thought we had gotten past this idea that being a Navy man is all you are. Without the Navy, what are you? Gee, how about our fearless leader? A cop? My pain-in-the-ass partner and best friend? My children's favorite uncle? Need I go on? You are part of something here, you're not just out there on your own any more, moving through life one mission at a time."

"It's more than that—"

"No," Danny replied, unconsciously taking on the same tone he took with Grace or Charlie when he was in his firm-but-caring father role. "Yes, you're starting over in a sense, but you're also not. You've done your Reserve training, sure, but it's an obligation, a holdover now. I know, I know, you enjoy it," he cut in, already reading the look on his partner's face, "but it's not your everyday life. Your day-to-day existence is with Five-0, with me, fighting bad guys. So, really, your life stays exactly the same, no matter what this letter says."

It was silent for a moment, and then Steve finally responded in a whisper that was hoarse with emotion he was clearly trying to repress. "It's bad enough I took a civilian job and left my men behind, but now I couldn't even go back to help them if they needed me. I'm less than them—than the Navy—now."

"That's not true," Danny retorted sharply. "You gave so much for your country—too much, if you ask me. And now you've sacrificed the institution that you love so much to give to this island, and having some idiot in Washington— one who doesn't even know what the hell he's talking about—make this decision doesn't take away from that. It doesn't negate what you did or what you are still doing. You're still Super SEAL, got it? This piece of paper, it doesn't change anything. And I can absolutely fucking guarantee that this letter here won't change the fact that you'll come up with all your harebrained schemes that seem awful and somehow work out, and all around act like you're still in the Navy on any given day, okay?"

Danny could see that Steve wanted to argue, so he stopped it as much as he could by swiftly changing tactics. "Do you trust me?"

That gets Steve's attention like Danny knew it would. "Of course I do. You should know that."

"I do, but I'm reminding you this fact. And since you trust me, can you trust me to tell you that you're not less than or anything else that your brain is going to try to convince you of? You're not less than anything to me, babe. Or anyone else that matters, and you have to realize that to us, you're more than just what the Navy values you at—you're a lot more than just a body to solve a war with to us, got it? The Navy was not—is not—your only identity, and it's not a measure of your worth to the people of this island, or the people who love you. And I'll keep saying that until it gets through your thick skull."

The blonde could see that his partner still wanted to push back, and Danny knew that that this hurt, this ache, this feeling of betrayal was going to take a lot more than one more conversation to move on from. But at the same time, there was a heartbreakingly hopeful look in the SEAL's eyes that showed just how much he wanted to believe what Danny said.

So Danny doesn't say anything else, let's his words sink in, and takes Steve's hand, squeezing tightly—letting his brother know that even if he has to start over in this post-Navy life, Danny will be there every step of the way.

* * *

 **Charlotte**


End file.
